Ep 29: Is It Time For A New Financial Advisor?
The X's & O's
It's important to have a financial advisor to help you build a plan and get you to and through retirement. Many people are able to call themselves financial advisors, but they are not required to do what is best for the client. Brent, Matthew, and Joshua discuss some of the red flags to note when talking to a financial advisor and when it might be time to seek out a second opinion.
Listen to the podcast episode...
The Hosts:
Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal and Joshua Winterswyk
Transcript:
Brent Pasqua: Welcome to the show. Brent, Matthew, Joshua, the group’s all here. Guys, how are you doing?
Matthew Theal: Doing well, Brent. How about yourself?
Brent Pasqua: I’m doing good, good. How about you, Josh?
Joshua Winterswyk: I’m doing good. Everything’s good. I’m kind of enjoying the last couple days of the gloomy mornings. I think it’s a little residual from that June gloom, so I’m doing good.
Brent Pasqua: Does it kind of seem like either this year is flying by, or is it taking forever? I can’t tell because sometimes it’s like the days are long, but then the months just seem like they’ve been flying by.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, pretty fast. I mean, hopefully we can get this six months over and get into 2021 pretty quick.
Joshua Winterswyk: I think I did the… It was like, since we were last in the office, it’s been 110 days. Does that seem like a lot of days? Does that seem fast?
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, but March was so long, and then the months after kind of March and April, it just started to really speed up. I don’t know what it is, but to me, it still feels like some of the days are long. It’s like, weeks can take some time, but then you look, and you’re like, man, June’s already just flew by. Now we’re heading into July, and then we’ll be right up in August. So, it just seems like the days are flying by, though. But it’s kind of funny because when we left the office on March 13th, we put our predictions out there, when we thought we were going to be back in the office. I think I said the first, or I think you said the first week of April, Josh, and I said the second week. Matt, you said the first week of May.
Joshua Winterswyk: We were all way off.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. I think if we would’ve said 2021, anybody would win at that point.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, that’s what I meant. You didn’t see the year after my month?
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. What’s on the plans for 4th of July? Anybody have anything good going on?
Matthew Theal: I’m going to play a little golf over the weekend. Always on the golf course, trying to golf once a week right now. Going to be in the pool with my swim trunks on, going to grill some burgers and dogs, maybe drink a beer, just really celebrate our country, celebrate America. Josh?
Brent Pasqua: How about you, Josh?
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, no real plans. Obviously, it’s pretty hard right now to make any big plans, but my wife and I plan to eat some burgers and some dogs. I’m going to get a round of golf in with Matt here, so I will see who does better on this America birthday weekend. Yeah, that’s about it, maybe take a bike ride, but we have no real big plans. What about you, Brent?
Brent Pasqua: We’re planning on… I think we may be staying home. We obviously want the kids to see fireworks. We can see a lot of that from our house, but it’s kind of hard right now because you want to make plans, but with everything kind of shutting back down, it’s hard to make any real plans. But we just want to make it exciting and fun for the kids. I think that’s what’s always the best part of holidays as you get a little bit older and you have young kids.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, for sure.
Matthew Theal: You should go to one of those fireworks stores on Fontana and create your own show this year.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, I’m not about that, man. I don’t do danger.
Joshua Winterswyk: Doesn’t seem Brent’s style.
Brent Pasqua: No. I don’t like things on fire. It’s just not… I think it’s illegal in our city, so I’ll stay away from that. But if anybody’s watching us on YouTube, you can definitely see who the golfers are because you guys look like you’re both wearing golf polos right now.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, yeah. I got some new polos for that course. I might as well use them for the podcast too.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. I’m not in a golf polo. You guys are. Maybe I’ll join the club soon. All right. So, let’s get to some Hot Takes. Investors ages 65 and up who made a change to their portfolio between the months of February and May, 33% of those moved some money out of stocks. What’s your thought on that?
Matthew Theal: It sounds like these people need a financial planner, or a little bit better advice, because I know when the market falls it can be scary, but again, my guess is they all probably sold around March, and then they bought back in May, once the dust settled. But they probably lost a ton of money doing that, and it’s unfortunate because people age 65, you are at retirement age, and we obviously work with a ton of clients who are at that age, and we understand the fear, but you can’t let fear dictate your retirement plan.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, I agree. 33%’s a lot. That’s just a lot of people. One out of three people over the age of 65 made changes to their portfolio? I mean, to me, that just screams red flag. Why are so many people during this downturn, especially at a time where if you’re in retirement, I don’t think your portfolio should be changing too drastically, especially if you’re needing it for income or anything like that. So, that number just is really alarming, that that many people are moving in and out of stocks at this volatile time.
Brent Pasqua: The average age in the US for retirement is actually right now 62, but in recent years, the most common age has actually creeped up to age 65. So, if you think about the most vulnerable time for a portfolio, it’s really that first one to three years after somebody retires. So, anybody who just retired or had been retired a year before, maybe even two years before, who was taking income from their portfolio, I can understand why that was so emotionally concerning, and to try and stay in with the unknown of not knowing what’s going to happen in the market, I get it.
Brent Pasqua: I get the concern that a lot of people would have, but you have to stay in it. I mean, in four weeks the market wiped out almost four years of returns, but if you missed March 24th, 25th, and 26th, you missed probably some of the best days that will happen over the next decade. You’ll never make up those returns. So, as scary as it is to me, and I understand that, man, 33% is a large number. I’m glad a lot of those weren’t any of our clients because we had some calls, but people weren’t really diving out of the market. They just wanted to talk about it.
Matthew Theal: I mean, hopefully, you could say maybe some of those people were buying like we were, but unfortunately, they don’t say it, so I guess we’re assuming they’re selling.
Brent Pasqua: PGA Tour pros have used the WHOOP fitness device to detect COVID symptoms early. You guys being big golf guys, Matt, I’ve heard you drop the WHOOP line a bunch of times. What’s happening here with this? Is this true?
Matthew Theal: Yeah. So, it is. Actually, WHOOP, which is a fitness device maker similar to the Fitbit or iWatch, I actually have one on right now, it’s on my wrist, for the people watching on YouTube, but essentially, what they found was that their users who reported having COVID-19, they saw a spike in their respiratory rate days before they actually had the virus symptoms. So, they partnered with a bunch of different universities, Harvard Medical School, Brittingham Health, CQUniversity, and they ran a study. What the study shows is that by wearing a WHOOP band, you could detect if you have COVID by day three of being infected, which is earlier than the testing kits can detect you. So, I of course went out and bought one real fast.
Brent Pasqua: Not surprising. We’d expect you to be first. So, I guess what it basically does, the WHOOP monitor basically monitors your fitness level, your health, your diet, hydration, sleep performance, respiratory rates, all of those different body ranges, and I guess what the story basically goes is the golfer Nick Watney, he flies in to the golf tournament on Wednesday, he goes and gets tested Wednesday, he tests negative for COVID, he goes out Thursday, he plays his round, and then that night, Thursday, he sleeps, the WHOOP picks up that his respiratory rate started to increase because he had worn the monitor for a long time, and he knew what his rates were.
Brent Pasqua: He then started to see it was going up that night, and it increased throughout the night, went and then made the conscious decision to go get tested Friday. He went and got tested, they got his… He went and started to play his round, or he went out there. Friday, they got his test results, and he tested positive. So, he basically could’ve been playing the whole weekend, just infecting everybody he was around, had it not been for this device.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, pretty amazing. I mean, I decided to try it out. They have the one-month free trial. It’s $30 a month. It does take a few days to get it, I guess, regulated to your body, so I’m now just starting to get my data going, but for $30 a month, my wife’s pregnant, to detect early COVID, I’ll wear it.
Joshua Winterswyk: My take is I just want the Apple Watch to do this. I think that everything that the band does is awesome. I mean, just for the simple… If you’re an athlete, and the recovery performance that it shows, just for recovery from workouts and preventing injuries, I think that stuff’s really good that that band does, but I don’t want to wear two bands. I wear an Apple Watch, and I know, Matt, you’re showing off your two bands here. I guess this is my cry to Apple, buy this company and incorporate it into your watch, or I don’t know what the solution is, but I don’t want to wear two bands, but I do think that the story you told, Brent, the reviews, and just all of the analytics behind the band are really, really cutting-edge, and I think they’re awesome.
Brent Pasqua: I mean, if this really does work, every sport better be getting on this for all their athletes because this is a way to keep players protected and athletes protected.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, absolutely.
Matthew Theal: Same with all Americans. I tried to get my parents to buy one.
Joshua Winterswyk: With your dad being a doctor, what was his thought?
Matthew Theal: He poo-pooed it. He was like, “Oh, no. It can never tell that, blah, blah, blah.” I was like, “Well, Dad, technology’s changed a lot since you were in medical school, in the early ’80s.”
Brent Pasqua: I did see a couple doctors on Twitter that were saying the same thing, but respiratory rate, if it’s able to tell your respiratory rate, it doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult for that thing to predict it if that’s the biggest sign of COVID, is respiratory issues.
Joshua Winterswyk: But I think even besides COVID, just to have that even more depth, those analytics to your body, all of those combined that it’s incorporating, I think it’s just helpful for just overall health or being more healthy.
Brent Pasqua: Absolutely. You guys ready for the next stage in this podcast?
Joshua Winterswyk: I am.
Matthew Theal: Yes.
Brent Pasqua: All right. Let’s head on into Retirement Planning Corner. The question we are asking is, is it time for a new financial advisor, and how do you know if it is time to seek a second opinion? So, we’re really trying to get some insight, let people know what to be looking out for, what you want to be paying attention to, and we created a different list of many different things that you should be aware of. So, let’s start with number one, which is one of my favorites, frequent portfolio changes. Every time you meet with your advisor, you’re making a change to the portfolio. What’s your thoughts on this, Matt?
Matthew Theal: So, let’s say you go for your annual or quarterly review with your advisor, and every time you meet with them, you’re making a change in your portfolio. They’re maybe throwing a Morningstar printout at you and telling you the fund you’re in, fund X, Y, Z, is no longer good, and you need to go and fund A, B, C, and here’s why, and it’s a gold-rated, top-performing Morningstar fund. Then they start talking about some benchmarks and how great this fund is. I mean, you don’t even know what a benchmark is. What’s a benchmark? They’re just throwing big buzzwords at you and confusing you. If that’s happening, it’s probably time to seek a second opinion.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, throwing those Morningstar reports at you. Right?
Matthew Theal: Yep.
Brent Pasqua: Got to go from the three-star Morningstar reports to five-star.
Matthew Theal: Exactly.
Brent Pasqua: Josh, what are your thoughts?
Joshua Winterswyk: I think that the frequent portfolio changes is just a really good indicator, and you got to ask yourself, do you have a yes man? Every time you go into the office or you’re on the phone, is it yes? I think I should change. Yes. I think we need to change direction. Yes. So, if it’s always constantly change, and there is no input, there’s no real knowledge or coaching or education behind the changes, who is that really benefiting? Do you even know if it’s really benefiting you if it’s just constant portfolio changes with no real great explanation, only Morningstar reports and benchmark reports, like you guys were talking about? I think that’s a really good trigger to start looking for a second opinion.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. I guess my question would be, why is somebody constantly wanting to make trades or changes? If they are, that’s more than likely they don’t have a strong investment philosophy, number one, or number two, they’re doing transactions and trades because they get paid when they do transactions and trades. Back in the day, when I say back in the day, ’80s, ’90s, beginning of the 2000s, most advisors were making commissions based off of transacting. You could place stock trades. You could buy three shares today, buy three shares next month. I mean, these guys were trading all over the place, and then also, in mutual funds, you have loads. You have commissions getting in and out. So, there was a lot of transactions that were going on.
Brent Pasqua: You still see that a lot today, and we hear about it a lot, and it’s just movement because of some kind of financial gain that’s generally better for the advisor than it is for the client. We don’t really go through that. I don’t have a conversation, “Let’s make this drastic change in your portfolio.” I mean, ours is all investment philosophy-based. Let’s make a rebalance here. If we’re making any changes at all, or adjustments to their lifestyle or their plan, well, besides that, I don’t think that really should be happening. If it is, I would seek a second opinion. I don’t know what you guys think.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yep, agreed.
Matthew Theal: Agreed.
Brent Pasqua: Point number two, unclear fee structure. Your advisor charges you a commission. You don’t understand what you are paying for. Josh, give us an idea of what that would mean.
Joshua Winterswyk: I just want to start with, if they tell you you’re not paying anything, there’s no fees, or don’t worry about it, it’s just baked in, those kind of common words or common phrases that are used are just really big red flags, and we all have examples of how unhappy we are when it’s unclear of how much we’re paying, whether if it’s a contractor you hire for your house or an attorney. Any time there’s that unclear fee structure, when they’re not very transparent about the way that the advisor is making money, it’s just another red flag for clients to seek a second opinion.
Matthew Theal: Yeah. So, when I was in college, my mom inherited some money because my grandparents passed away, and she went down to the bank to get some advice on what to do with the money, and what ended up happening is the lady made her a proposal of different Morningstar reports and sent her with some funds, and she brought it back home and showed me and my dad, and I’m just going to make up a number because it’s easy, but let’s say she inherited a million dollars. Well, the funds the lady was putting her in all had 5% load fees. So, just for putting together the portfolio, my mom was going to end up paying this lady 50K up front. Her million-dollar inheritance would turn into $950,000, for nothing. My dad-
Brent Pasqua: You’re starting off on a negative return.
Matthew Theal: Yeah. My dad and I were like, “Well, look. Here’s these A Share funds. We could just go to TD Ameritrade and buy the non-commission-based funds, or Charles Schwab. Why on earth would we work with this lady?”
Joshua Winterswyk: She didn’t want to pay the admission fee?
Matthew Theal: Yeah. So, long story short, the money was managed at Charles Schwab, but we manage it now, but it’s just crazy.
Brent Pasqua: My feeling is that if you can’t tell me exactly what you’re paying on a quarterly basis, monthly basis, however you’re billed, exactly what you’re paying in a fee, then there’s a reason to look for change, because you should know to the penny exactly what you’re paying. You should have an invoice for it. It should be fully transparent. There should be no discrepancy or no lack of clarity of what you’re paying in fees. There’s no reason for that anymore. Technology’s too advanced. People should know exactly what they’re paying in costs.
Joshua Winterswyk: You make a good point, though. Where’s the invoice? Do you ever get one? How are you keeping track of that? If you’re not, maybe ask yourself that question and find out.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, because if you think of your portfolio like a business, the higher the expenses you pay, the less your profits are going to be. So, how can you have unmanaged expenses, and what business runs without knowing what their expenses are? If that’s your largest asset or one of your largest assets or one of your most important assets, probably should really know what your costs are, to the penny.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, I agree. I agree.
Brent Pasqua: All right, next one, doesn’t do full financial planning. Your advisor only talks about your portfolio he manages or she manages for you. Matt, what are your thoughts?
Matthew Theal: Like I said, if you’re meeting with your advisor and every time you meet with them they’re just going over maybe a portfolio performance report, and they’re not helping you with those other areas of your financial life, what are you paying them for? I mean, when you go with your advisor, they should be going over your balance sheet. You should be looking at cashflow reports. You should be discussing when you’re going to retire, what your Social Security’s going to look like, how you’re going to convert your retirement account into income, but a lot of these advisors out there, all they’re doing is managing money. You can get money managed for really cheap at Betterment or Wealthfront or Vanguard. So, like we were saying in the last one, why do you need to pay them a bunch of money if they’re not doing anything?
Brent Pasqua: I feel like a lot of advisors ask good questions about what people’s goals are, but I don’t know that they all really solve for it. Is that your feeling?
Matthew Theal: I don’t know. It depends where your advisor’s at. On the independent side, probably, but I don’t know. Josh, you’ve had a little bit more expertise on what it’s like working with a bank advisor. I mean, are they asking goal-based questions, or are they just showing a portfolio and selling?
Joshua Winterswyk: Before I left, my experience with that side of the business was the corporate bank was getting better at the conversation about goals and making sure that your goals are talked about to make the client feel more comfortable, but it was still very transaction-based. It was very, you’re getting this model. Yes, we do financial planning, but the financial plan’s the same for everybody. You’re getting the same portfolio, and you’re getting this booklet that we put together with the full bullet points of your information to pump out this generic financial plan. So, that’s something to be very, very mindful of.
Joshua Winterswyk: Is it really tailored to you? Because I think it’s becoming more common, like you said, Brent, of the goal conversation being had by advisors, but is that plan actually being custom-fit? Is it really being tailored to your situation to be giving and receiving that real value of financial planning? Just on all the points that you made, Matt, and one thing that wasn’t a big conversation, especially on the bank side, was taxes, which are just a huge part of financial planning and investing, and there’s not a lot of time talked about that, which I think that’s a really big value add from working with an advisor that’s really doing full financial planning.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, and I think if anyone’s sitting there thinking, is it really financial planning can solve for some of my really complex issues, or just basic issues? Really, could it solve and allow me to see what I want to see? The answer is yes. I mean, financial planning software is so elaborate. It’s so amazing now. Software can solve for anything. So, if you’re working with the right people, yes, there’s so much that this software can do. I mean, for many clients, a lot of times we don’t even have to touch half of what the software can do, just because everybody’s situation is different, everybody’s needs are different. You don’t need that same thing for everybody. But software is amazing. So, if you’re not really doing financial planning or solving for goals, key, key factor in this topic. Let’s lead in to the next one, and I hope guys don’t just leave this one for me, only talks about annuities. Your advisor uses the word safe money in meetings. What’s the old pitch there?
Joshua Winterswyk: I think you should just take this one.
Matthew Theal: Get into it. Tell us about safe money, Brent.
Brent Pasqua: Okay. So, the old pitch in annuities that you always hear, and I’ve been listening to this stuff for the last 15, 16 years, is, “Oh, this investment goes up, but it doesn’t go down. The most you could lose is zero. It’s a stair step to financial freedom.” They draw their little drawing on the board. What goes up can’t go down. It’s a stair-step climb to financial freedom.
Matthew Theal: The stair step to financial-
Joshua Winterswyk: I don’t know if I’ve heard that one.
Matthew Theal: … freedom.
Joshua Winterswyk: That is really good.
Brent Pasqua: I don’t know if you guys saw this, but even there was some stuff floating around online on Twitter recently about some lady that was selling annuities on TikTok.
Joshua Winterswyk: Really?
Brent Pasqua: It was all the same stuff, what goes up doesn’t go down, the lowest you could do is zero. I mean, it’s all of this, and it’s all fear-based selling about, “Do you really want to lose any of this money? You’ve saved this your whole life. What happens if the market goes down 30%? Do you really want to lose it all? Let’s put all of this money into this insurance product.” Well, guess what? You know what goes along with that, is the whole commission-based stuff where we get paid from the company who we put your business with, so you don’t have to pay us anything. That just screams problem. Anybody who’s switching you from where you’re at into these commission-based annuities, be just very, very aware, it’s not probably going to go as planned. A lot of this doesn’t work out.
Brent Pasqua: I’ll tell you a quick story. So, my dad recently got pitched at his company regarding some life insurance that they’re trying to implement into his plan at work, and I looked at the illustration and it said, “Well, if you put X amount of dollars into this plan for the next, I think, five years or seven years,” it was short because his retirement horizon is short, that you would have X amount dollars paid out for the rest of your life. So, I’m doing the math on it. I’m like, “So, you put in X, and they’re going to give you three times more that amount of money, and you’re only putting for this short amount of time?” I’m like, “Okay. So, basic math doesn’t add up.”
Brent Pasqua: So, I reached out to them, and I’m like, “Okay. So, can you explain to me how this is possible?” Well, on the illustration that they ran for him, they can only run it at a max return, so there’s a max amount of rate of return they can run it at. They basically ran it at that. So, they stretched the illustration as much as they can, and I’m like, “Okay. Well, let’s assume, because the world exists in a non-perfect state, that things don’t go as planned, and you don’t get your maximum rate of return, because that’s probably not going to happen in an index-based annuity or insurance like this.” So, they reran it. So, when he reran it, though, he reran it with a different algorithm, because when you run illustrations, you can rerun it multiple times to give it the outcome that you want. That’s part of the downside of working with these insurance companies also.
Joshua Winterswyk: So, basically, they ran best-case scenario-
Brent Pasqua: The first time-
Joshua Winterswyk: … the very, very best-case scenario.
Brent Pasqua: The first time they ran it, they ran the very best-case scenario, but then I had them run it the second time. The second time they ran it to me, they basically ran it where the expected rate of return was slightly less, but in no years did the market go zero, or less than zero. So, basically, every year for the next 20 years or whatever, it had a positive rate of return. I’m like, how is that possible? Have we not seen in the last 10 years, 15 years how many times the market can be negative? So, the ability of which they structure these illustrations, for someone like my dad who doesn’t know all the numbers, he would never know. It seems like a great deal. I put in X, you give me Y. Seems to work out great, tax-free income. Doesn’t work like that. There’s just too many manipulations in that side of the industry. I don’t agree with it. I think it’s wrong, and what bothers me is that it affects other people’s life, and that’s what I don’t like.
Matthew Theal: Can’t trust them.
Joshua Winterswyk: I guess I should rephrase that. It’s not best-case scenario. That was in a perfect world, was those illustrations that were run for your dad, which is scary.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. It’s in such a perfect world that the insurance company, for compliance and fiduciary responsibilities, will not let you run it any different than that.
Joshua Winterswyk: A bunch of red flags.
Matthew Theal: Yeah.
Brent Pasqua: Anything else about safe money, or are you guys just going to let me handle it?
Matthew Theal: Yeah, I think you covered it, man.
Joshua Winterswyk: No, we like when you handle safe money.
Brent Pasqua: All right. All right. Well, if anybody wants to talk more about safe money, call me, because I can talk for hours. I could tell you stories for over the last 15 years. All right. So, number five, your retirement picture is unclear. The advisor has done a poor job preparing you for retirement, and you don’t have an action plan or the slightest idea of when you can retire. Joshua, why don’t you start with this one?
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, this is really good, especially if you’re getting to… I think even at any age, if you’ve met with your advisor, and it’s not clear, your cashflow report, meaning your projected income, expenses, and you don’t have a projected retirement date, then it’s just the very basics of a retirement projection. If you haven’t seen that actually created for you, this is a really, really, really big red flag because, really, that’s what you’re paying your advisor to do, is that specialty of creating this retirement projection so you have a clear picture of what your future’s going to look like, and having the numbers to actually really coincide with that picture. So, I think that if you haven’t received that, if you’ve been working with an advisor and you still don’t know what your projected retirement income is or don’t have a projected retirement date, those are all just red flags of seeking a second opinion or asking more questions, because really, that’s what you should be paying your advisor for.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, and then once you get that retirement plan, how are you going to distribute the money? The day you retire is the richest you’re going to be in your whole life, because most likely you have to live on that money. Most Americans do. So, is your advisor helping you create a safe withdrawal strategy? Is he going through all the different withdrawal options, or like Brent just said on the last one, are they selling you an annuity and telling you it’s safe money?
Brent Pasqua: Yeah.
Joshua Winterswyk: I agree. I feel like a lot of people that we meet with as well, even for the first time, when we have that conversation about do you understand how your assets are going to create income for you, the answer is no, and that’s one of the values that we add, is helping them understand how, like you just said, that withdrawal strategy of how to turn this pot of money into that income stream, and that’s very, very important. I agree with you, Matt.
Matthew Theal: A lot of people think it’s just going to be dividend stocks, bonds, or an annuity, but there’s other ways to do it. Yeah.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. The retirement picture, if you’re sitting there and the retirement picture is so unclear, and there’s so many unknowns to what happens within your plan, your money, your finances, your life, that chapter of life of retirement, that’s completely understandable. I mean, a lot of people enter a relationship with an advisor, with us, with that same feeling. But to me, it’s kind of like picking up a book on a topic you don’t know a lot about, but you’re really interested in knowing about.
Brent Pasqua: You don’t have a lot of experience with that, maybe, and you have a lot of questions maybe in your mind that you don’t have a lot of clarity on it, but once you start reading the book and you get through the book, it all starts to really make sense. That’s what a good advisor should do when they’re doing planning, is take something that’s really unclear, relate it in a very simple way so that you can understand it, and show you very clearly how it can work, and give you clear outcomes. Then you have that peace of mind, knowing you’re either going to be okay or you need to work longer, or you can make some really good decisions at that point, but make sure… That should provide clarity, though.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, 100%.
Brent Pasqua: So, we went through a lot. Any last thoughts on some of these different topics?
Matthew Theal: No. I mean, I’m good. If you feel uneasy with your advisor, for some reason you don’t trust them, call up a fee-only advisor. Look on napfa.com, or is .org? I should’ve prepared better. Look on NAPFA. Google fee-only financial planner, and a lot of them, like we do, they offer those free initial consultations. Set up a phone call. Talk with the advisor. You’re going to get a completely different experience than working with an insurance agent, a bank advisor, a broker, or even your rep at your 401(k) company.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, we didn’t even talk about that.
Matthew Theal: Yeah. Get a second opinion. If I was having knee surgery, I would get multiple opinions. If you’re about to retire, you should probably get a couple sets of eyes on your plan.
Brent Pasqua: Just to check that, it is napfa.org. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah. I think it’s really hard for people to make change. I mean, it’s hard for me to make change. It’s hard for all of us to make change, and if you’re sitting there like, yeah, it’s not great with this relationship, but I just don’t know who to call, go on NAPFA. Do some homework. It’s worth it to spend the time looking and researching, because those changes or that time you spend looking for someone else could really change your life. It’s not worth sitting on something and not making a change just for the fear of not wanting to put the effort into it.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, yeah.
Brent Pasqua: Let’s head into the last part of the show, RPA Recommends. Matthew, I’ll start with you. What do you have for us today?
Matthew Theal: So, I’m just going to grab it from over here. Today I’m going to talk about Element hydration tablets. So, I heard about these on a podcast. It’s basically just flavored saltwater, and you put it in a water bottle, you shake it up, you drink it. It’s like a Gatorade, but without sugar. Really, really good. I love the product. I actually started drinking one every day. So, I usually have it in the morning. I like it, the best hydration product I’ve ever tried.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. After you said that, I hadn’t tried one, and I bought a box and started drinking them. They are salty, but I felt hydrated. I felt good.
Joshua Winterswyk: Hold that box up again, Matt, just so anyone watching on YouTube can see it.
Matthew Theal: Then when I’m golfing, pro tip, I do one in the morning, and then I bring one in the cart with me.
Joshua Winterswyk: Got to stay hydrated.
Brent Pasqua: Big, big golf guys, for that big golf swing you guys got, huh? Josh, what do you have for us?
Joshua Winterswyk: My recommends today, if you’ve been watching the YouTube, you might’ve noticed, is just to get a haircut. It feels really good. Brent’s been on me to get a haircut, since my hair was so long, but I finally got one. It feels really good, and I recommend anyone who’s been putting off a haircut, if you can, get one. Get one, because it feels fresh, and especially in the summer. So, that’s my recommends for-
Brent Pasqua: You feel normal again?
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, yeah. I think just the long hair, and it just kind of everywhere was bringing me down a little bit, so just a lot more smiley today on the podcast, now that I got my hair cut.
Brent Pasqua: So, my RPA Recommends stems from something that Josh had taught me a while back, and I didn’t really always use it to full capacity like it could, so this is something that extends from something I learned from somebody else, and that’s why I want to share it with everybody else, because I think it’s actually something really good. It’s kind of funny because we have this conversation in the office or joke in the office that no matter how much a client portfolio goes up, it’s like, yeah, you did good. We’re glad the portfolio market’s up. We made a lot of money, good, happy. Clients are fine. But you save a client $50, and they think you’re the greatest thing in the world. You find a way for them to save $30 or $40 on insurance, and you send them to somebody that bundles everything, and that’s a big deal.
Brent Pasqua: Well, I have something that everybody can save money on. So, I’ve been buying a lot more online. Even groceries or anything that I need that I don’t really need to go to the extra stores for, I just go and get it online, but I’ve noticed a lot of these companies all have an area where you can put in for a discount or a voucher or whatever. Well, if you just Google that company and put discount code on there, you can find discount codes online, and you just copy and paste that discount code on whatever you’re purchasing, and it immediately knocks money off of your tab. It’s amazing.
Brent Pasqua: I’ve been telling Matt, where he gets his meat, from US Wellness Meat, to use a discount code, because you could just save 15% or 20%. I use it every time. It saves me money. Everywhere that I’ve been ordering from, before I order it or put my credit card in, I go and look for the discount code. I’ve saved hundreds of dollars over the last six or eight weeks just putting discount codes in. So, I’m not a big coupon guy, but I’m all about saving money, and if you are out there-
Joshua Winterswyk: I’m going to have to cut out, because you guys used to make fun of me for searching out the discount codes that are out there.
Brent Pasqua: No, it’s amazing. It is absolutely amazing. I’m telling you, I’ve saved $100. If you’re out there, you’re listening, and you want to buy something online, and it says discount code, search the discount codes and put the discount codes in, because you’ll save money. Then email us and tell us how much you saved because-
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, I like that.
Brent Pasqua: … I like that stuff.
Joshua Winterswyk: I’d like to hear from the clients saving money too. Did we talk about Honey on the show yet?
Brent Pasqua: No.
Joshua Winterswyk: Honey, or it’s like a Honey Google extension?
Brent Pasqua: No.
Joshua Winterswyk: Okay. Well, I’ll save that for the next show. That’ll be my recommends. I’ll piggyback on your discount code story on the next show. I won’t waste a good recommends, but glad to hear you’re saving money and using that search discount really well.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. So, everybody out there, go search discount codes every time before you buy something online. Save some money, and let us know what you’ve saved money on, because we get some really good feedback. So, send us your feedback on what you saved money on.
Matthew Theal: I got a promo code for the WHOOP before we close the show, since you’re talking about discount codes. Joe Rogan has one, so if you use his last name, Rogan, R-O-G-A-N, you get… I believe it’s 20% off the WHOOP band. That’s what I used too.
Brent Pasqua: Let’s make sure it’s clear that we don’t have an RPA discount code. We’re not sponsored yet.
Matthew Theal: But we should get one.
Brent Pasqua: I know. That would be cool.
Joshua Winterswyk: Retirement Plan Playbook, plug it in.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. But thank you all for listening. If you can, please go rate our show from wherever you’re getting your podcasts from. If you’d like to learn more about us or read the show notes, please go to Retirement Plan Playbook. We thank you, as always, for listening.
Joshua Winterswyk: Thank you for listening.
Matthew Theal: Thank you.
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