Ep 31: Retirement Trends Over The Next 10 Years
The X's & O's
Retirement today certainly looks different than it did 30 years ago. We have moved away from pensions and have put more emphasis on employer-sponsored plans. So how will the landscape for retirement continue to move and shift? Brent, Matthew, and Joshua talk about trends that they think we will start to see in this next decade.
The Hosts:
Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal and Joshua Winterswyk
Transcript:
Brent Pasqua: Welcome you into the Retirement Plan Playbook. I’ve got the group all here: Grant, Matthew, Joshua. We have a great show for you today. We’re going to break down some of the retirement trends over the next 10 years, but before we get started into those trends, my thought is, and the question I have is, what do you guys think of the sports restart this year? Does it feel like tournament play, or does it almost feel like a regular season?
Matthew Theal: I like it. It does feel like tournament play for NHL and NBA. I like baseball, and baseball has been a little different. It’s cool what they’re doing, and baseball is proving that. I mean, they’ve had a couple of hiccups, but for the most part you could play in your home market, just without fans. But just the scheduling is weird, how the ALS and the NLS are only playing each other. I feel like you’re seeing some weird things in the standings. Like, the Twins are a good team, but they’re in probably the weakest division, so they’re beating up on everybody. But in general, yeah, I love it. I’m having fun watching it.
Brent Pasqua: I feel like baseball is the most natural sport to watch. It almost feels the most normal than basketball looks like a video game. And hockey, you could really tell it’s not an actual game. Where the old structure… Do you get that feeling, Josh?
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, I really like it being back. I love that there’s sports on, and I can watch sports, and your favorite athletes or your favorite teams are back on. I really, really enjoy it. But it all just looks different. And it all feels like a tournament, or something’s just not right. Watching it is just a little different for me, but like I said, I am enjoying it. I’m also just very interested on how they’re handling all of… If there is a small outbreak, or someone tests positive, and making sure they’re keeping it within their bubble, or are restricting it from spreading. So, very interesting to see how they’re evolving as this continues to go on, and I hope that they can stay on top of it because I do like that it’s back.
Brent Pasqua: I think that’s a less talked about point in all of this right now. Everyone’s so emotional about COVID; it’s become politicized. But what’s fascinating is just really the adaptability of businesses and sports and how they’re handling things. I mean, is it fascinating to you also, Matt?
Matthew Theal: Yeah. It’s really neat to see how the sports leagues have actually, in a way, been the leaders in what to do. Especially, the NBA has done a tremendous job, as has actually… It doesn’t get talked about because the sport’s not popular, but the NHL’s bubble has actually probably been better than the NBA’s bubble. With NHL that was really cool. So yeah, it’s cool. It’s neat. It’s neat seeing the sports leagues lead the country back. Yeah.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. It’s a nice distraction too to have on, because they have sports on during the day. They have games running pretty much all day, all night. It’s neat to have sports on and to be able to take a break from the monotony of what has been this year.
Matthew Theal: The other thing too, and I don’t know if you guys saw, but football season is coming up. In a couple of weeks now we’ll be kicking off NFL, and they’re having fans in the stands in select areas. Who was announced? Kansas City Chiefs announced that they were going to have, I believe, 25% of fans in the stands. And then MLS is allowing fans in the stands, too. And I think, was it Dallas, that had 20%, Josh, or 5,000 fans there?
Joshua Winterswyk: 5,000 fans. Yeah. The Dallas versus National did. Yeah. So that was good to see that they’re already getting some fans in the stands and no negative news after those games that were played with the fans in the stands either.
Matthew Theal: What’s going to be weird is we’re watching a football game, it’s Monday night football, Kansas City Chiefs are playing someone, and the stadium’s at 20% capacity. So it’s going to be really weird to see that.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. And baseball’s handling the sound with them using speakers. They’re using, basically, fake sound. I wonder if football will implement the same thing with crowd noise or how they’re going to do it, but it’s interesting.
Matthew Theal: They should, or there’s going to be no home field advantage.
Brent Pasqua: Right. And it’s what they simulate and practices too, right?
Matthew Theal: Yeah, with the noise probably. You know who’s probably really excited for football season this year? Probably the first time they’ve had a home field advantage in decades, is the Chargers.
Joshua Winterswyk: I was going to say the 20% fans looks like a summer baseball game anyway.
Brent Pasqua: It certainly feels good to have sports back on.
Joshua Winterswyk: Absolutely.
Brent Pasqua: All right. Let’s get into the headlines. Gold is up 27% this year and hit a new all time high. Should retirees invest in gold?
Matthew Theal: No, they shouldn’t, Brent. But no, joking aside, sure. Anything less than 5% of your retirement account that can make sense. But for me, if I was going to make an investment I would just rather do Bitcoin. Gold is a rock. It has no useful purpose in the world other than the instrument of speculation. At least there’s some technology behind Bitcoin and it’s a cool way to transfer money internationally. And it could potentially be a safe store currency for countries that have volatile currencies.
Brent Pasqua: And you can correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s only a few ways that you can really invest in gold. I mean, there’s several, but the main ones are coins, bullions, and really through ETFs.
Matthew Theal: Yeah. Most people are going to do it through ETFs.
Joshua Winterswyk: My thoughts on gold. It’s just so crazy that through these volatile times the gold commercials start coming back. I was watching TV and now there’s gold commercials pitching to buy gold and talking about all the benefits. I was just interested on what the rate of return was of gold. Since 1915 the rate of return of gold is 4.3%, the annual rate of return of gold. And adjusted for inflation it’s 1.1% since 1915.
Joshua Winterswyk: So ask yourself first, if you’re investing in gold, why are you doing it? I mean, is it for the return or you’re speculating? Because the return history doesn’t really show that great of a story. If you really adjusted for inflation you’re only getting 1.1%. And then also, gold doesn’t pay any dividends. There’s no product, there’s no revenues, there’s no profits like investing in stocks and mutual funds have. And like Matt said, it’s just a rock. My take on this, should you, like Matt said, is no. Just research gold more before you actually buy it.
Matthew Theal: I saw a silly Bloomberg article the other day saying that you should throw out the bonds in the 60, 40 portfolios. So at 60% stock 40% bonds, and it should be 60% stock 40% gold, which is probably the dumbest thing I read this year besides these COVID slash post office takes that I see going all over the internet.
Matthew Theal: But you’re absolutely right, Josh, on the performance. Ten year performance in gold is at 4.5%, and the ten year performance of a bond fund, the Barclay’s aggregate bond index everyone uses, is 3.6%. So about 1% less per year. But with gold, the draw down is 40%.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, that’s crazy.
Matthew Theal: It’s way too volatile.
Joshua Winterswyk: A lot of people talk about using it as a hedge, but then you’re just increasing the volatility, right? So that, again, factor is the bump.
Matthew Theal: When we lived through a pandemic fear in March and April, what people want is toilet paper, paper towels, bleach, and food. They don’t want gold.
Joshua Winterswyk: That’s a good point. They don’t want a rock.
Brent Pasqua: And what people are generally selling on these commercials are the coins and the bullions, right?
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Theal: Yeah.
Joshua Winterswyk: I think the one I was watching… Sorry. The one I was watching, it was like, “And then you can give that to your children.” It incorporated that technique of it’s physical and then you can give it to your children. I just thought that was funny.
Brent Pasqua: Right. But when you go buy these coins or these bullions you’re going to pay a premium because there’s going to be this fee and that fee to store the coin or get the coin and ship the coin. You’re paying a premium for it. And then when you go sell it you’re never going to get market price when you sell it, there’s going to be a cost to sell it. So once you factor in all the costs of exchange, and then having to hold on to a coin.
Joshua Winterswyk: I think that’s another factor. Like you said, that’s a great point. But then storing it, you’re going to want to buy a safe or something to hold it in so it doesn’t get stolen or you don’t lose it. And there’s just another layer of fees that you’re going to have to pay, or a price you’re going to have to pay to even store it or hold it.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. And I think lot of people try to purchase these in their retirement accounts, for example their IRA, and then starting at 59 and a half you have requirement of distribution. So how do you take out a distribution from a rock? It creates another complication that the money has to come out of somewhere else. So to me, it just seems like a fear factor, an old school philosophy. Probably better ways to close that gap and to make you feel a little bit more secure.
Joshua Winterswyk: I agree.
Matthew Theal: Just buy Bitcoin. Better returns, better storage.
Brent Pasqua: I guess that could be a topic for another show. The next headline, both Apple and Tesla announced stock splits. Apple is doing a four for one split. Tesla’s doing a five for one split. And owners of Apple will have four times the amount of shares that they had the day prior. But obviously their shares will be worth four times less. What’s your thought on this split, Matt?
Matthew Theal: I think people get way too excited about stock splits. It’s cool because yeah, sure, you own more shares. But at the end of the day it’s like breaking a pencil in half. So you have a pencil, you break it in half, well now you have two pencils, but it’s still the same length when you put it back together. And so if you had 10,000 invested in Tesla and Apple, when the split is happening, well, the next morning you’re still going to have that 10,000 invested. You just have a few more shares. And I think it’s a big mistake that novice or inexperienced investors make is that they look at a share price of a company and judge their company as being expensive or inexpensive. That’s why people get really excited.
Brent Pasqua: Josh, what’s your thoughts?
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, it was. I always use an example or analogy, like Matt said with the pencil. I think of it as a pizza. You’re cutting just more slices into the pizza. So you’re eating the same amount of pizza, you could just be taking more slices out of it. That was the analogy I thought of when I saw the stock splits.
Matthew Theal: That’s a great one, Josh.
Joshua Winterswyk: Thank you. I appreciate that. Maybe I’m just hungry. That’s why I’m thinking about pizza. I’m the same way. It’s not really fundamentally changing anything of value to the company. So again, do your research here. Stock splits doesn’t make it any different. The company ,at that point, is just making it more affordable to buy the share, which could be a good thing. Absolutely for entry level investors who weren’t able to afford a share before. But now there’s also different platforms that you can buy fractional shares of companies and stuff too. So does the stock split even mean that much anymore at all? So that’s just my thoughts. Is it a good time to invest? If you couldn’t before and you wanted to invest in Apple or Tesla, but now it’s more affordable and you can, then I think you should pull the trigger.
Matthew Theal: I do think it’s good. I agree from the psychological standpoint, because it does seem more approachable when shares are 100 or 200 a share compared to a couple thousand. The one that does probably need to split their shares because everybody uses it and it’s probably a good just overall buy for a portfolio, is Amazon. Where Amazon is, it’s a retailer. It’s really just like a Walmart, but they do it online. They probably should do a 10 for one split at least, get those shares to around 20, $30 a share.
Brent Pasqua: I guess, what’s the new reason that companies would want to do stock splits considering that many investors can buy fractional shares on a lot of these platforms now? Whether their stock price is $300 or $3,000 you can buy a fractional share. So where’s the value in splitting nowadays?
Matthew Theal: I’m not really sure why from the corporate finance angle why the corporations want to split their shares, because at the end of the day it really doesn’t mean anything. I mean, maybe they get a little bit more enthusiasm from the individual investor base when their stock price is lower.
Joshua Winterswyk: And I think also liquidity.
Matthew Theal: That’s true.
Joshua Winterswyk: On the liquidity side if you’re selling stock it’s easier to buy. We talked about everyone buying it at a lower price, but there’s also the other side of that transaction that the seller is able to liquidate on an easier basis if all the shares aren’t $1,000 a share. I think that’s also probably one of the other reasons why.
Matthew Theal: That makes a lot of sense. Good point, Josh.
Brent Pasqua: And we’ve seen a massive run on the prices of Apple and Tesla as they’ve announced these splits. Is that just the market or investors not really understanding the meaning of splits? Is that part of it? Why such a massive run?
Matthew Theal: I think part of your answer is correct. It’s the not understanding, but you actually have to get in by a certain date to get the split. So these people are probably hoping to jump in, get in and then get the split. But I believe if you do it after a certain date… Let me get the date for Apple. I don’t know it off the top of my head.
Brent Pasqua: I think it’s on the 31st.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, it splits on the 31st, but I believe you have to be in a week before to get the split. So that’s probably why they’re bidding them up.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. But like you said, there’s probably a lot of companies that could be doing splits and Amazon’s one of them, and Google, Facebook, Netflix. Netflix split I think when Apple had split in the past, right?
Matthew Theal: I don’t know if Netflix has ever split.
Joshua Winterswyk: Maybe they don’t. Look at Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. I mean, never had a stock split.
Brent Pasqua: Right. They see the value in having that high price.
Joshua Winterswyk: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Brent Pasqua: All right, let’s get into the retirement planning corner. Let’s discuss a few retirement trends for the next 10 years. Go through all three of our trends. Matt, what’s your trend?
Matthew Theal: Sticking on the common stock theme, I do think one thing we’re going to start seeing in the next 10 years is more retirees getting into common stock trading. It’s starting to feel at the late ’90s out there where a lot more people are interested in learning about stock trading. I think that younger generation of retirees and potential retirees are going to demand stock trading for their 401Ks.
Matthew Theal: Because right now for 401Ks you can really only do mutual funds. Probably 95% of mutual funds are very outdated. There’s a section of them that are very good, but for the most part I think we’re going to see a big change in the 401K structure where hopefully they start allowing more common stocks. And they can do self-directed. If your plan allows it, you could get some stock in that way. But yeah, I think it’s the best take off.
Brent Pasqua: Is it responsible for employers to allow employees to invest in individual stocks in their retirement account? Does that then put the inexperience and their future at risk?
Matthew Theal: Well, they already do in a way because they’re making them just… They give them a menu of funds and say, “Go pick your retirement.”
Brent Pasqua: But the argument could be stated that somebody who’s an active manager in a mutual fund or picking a Vanguard fund gives you a lot better probability of long-term success than somebody as an investor is picking individual stocks who doesn’t know much about the stock market.
Matthew Theal: Absolutely. But what I think we’re seeing is better access to information. People who want to research stocks are going to want to buy them in their 401Ks. They’re going to demand a more customized stock portfolio for a certain segment of people. I mean, there’s so much research out there right now. StockTwits is a great website where you can learn a lot about what stocks are trending in the market. There’s also Robin Hood, who has their trending section on the app. And then I know we talked previously about the Reddit stock boards, Wall Street bets. So there’s just tons of information. I just see stock investing really starting to explode.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, you would think with our technology nowadays also that they should be allowing the assess ability to be in it and 401ks. I mean, it’s people’s money where they should be able to invest in what they want. And as we’ve all seen, we’ve come through a lot of plans where they have mutual funds that have one and a half percent or even higher expense ratios and fees in it. That’s not fair to the investor trying to save for retirement. So being able to buy stocks is probably very advantageous.
Matthew Theal: Yeah, I agree.
Joshua Winterswyk: I think it’s just probably maybe somewhere in between, just giving more options instead of not trusting the end investor in a 401K account, but giving more specialty options within that menu of mutual funds to where you can go out and buy. Matt, you’ve talked about it, just the tech industry. And you want to have exposure and more exposure in your investment portfolio and your 401k to the tech stocks. Well, you should probably maybe be able do that, right? Wouldn’t that be a nice feature within your 401K?
Joshua Winterswyk: I think as investors do learn more, there’s more information out there, there’s going to be more pushback even to the employer, their lineup of mutual funds that they’re going to want to have more options.
Matthew Theal: One thing too to talk about is we’re going back to the stock splits. You talk about Tesla. Tesla is one of the largest companies in the US, but it’s not in the S&P 500. So if you have an S&P 500 tracking fund inside of a 401K those people aren’t getting to invest in Tesla. I’ll read the top five funds that own Tesla. It’s iShares Momentum ETF, that’s not in the 401K. Vanguard International Growth, which I don’t know why Tesla’s in an international growth fund. Vanguard Extended Market, that’s the one I’ve seen in a lot of 401Ks. And the Vanguard Extended Market ETF, that’s another one you can’t get into 401Ks. So, it’s sad for these retirees who aren’t getting that access.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. Makes sense. All right. Let’s get into the next trend. Joshua, what trend do you see retirees going through over the next 10 years?
Joshua Winterswyk: The trend I chose and researched a little bit was just more retirees working later in life and also working part time through retirement. We’re already starting to see that trend with retirees when they retire or working later into their life. A lot of that has to do with just longer life expectancy, being healthier, also more education. The more education we get, the more likely we’ll maintain a job through retirement as well.
Joshua Winterswyk: And then a big portion of this is people just not having enough money saved in their retirement plan to be able to retire at an earlier age. The statistics prove it. The Department of Labor put out a survey that by 2026 Americans age 65 to 74 in the labor force will grow to about 30%, when in 1996 it was 17%. So you’re almost doubling the amount of older retirees still working over the last 30 years.
Joshua Winterswyk: So the trend is we can already see that in the numbers. And I think that that’s going to continue to even increase in our country, is that retirees will continue to either work full time or part time just for extra income to supplement that lack of savings, and because they’re healthier and living longer lives. So that’s a trend that I continue to see going forward.
Brent Pasqua: Do you think that COVID changes to the workplace allows retirees to work longer or to make these changes in jobs so they can work from home? It’s not as stressful having to drive as far or get to the office where they can extend their career a few extra years?
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah. And I think it naturally already pushed a lot of people just being nervous that we’re retiring this year, right? It’s going to push that growth rate of people working longer even further because of COVID, because a lot of people are putting off retirement due to the pandemic. So I think that you’re right, though. And I agree with what you just said, that the climate and how the work environment’s changing will lead for older Americans to continue to work because it’s more favorable. We don’t have to get up and drive for… I was driving 45 minutes to work every day. Work at home schedules are really going to help people be able to work longer if they have to or want to.
Matthew Theal: I work with a client who is a sales executive. Her and her husband lived in California two years ago. They bought their retirement home and moved to Utah. She’s still working; she’s working virtually now. And she told me when she was about to leave California, she said, “Matthew, I’m going to retire next year. I’m going to go up to Utah, I’ll work virtually for a little bit of time, and then I’m pulling the plug.” But she’s so happy up in Utah three years later she hasn’t even retired yet. Retirement’s not even in her thought process anymore.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. And I think we’ve seen a lot of people on the onset of COVID at the first half of this year that they did just… Okay, I was going to retire next year anyway, so I’m just going to retire. But I could see a lot of those people going back towards their passion job, or going back to work in an at-home position. And as things start to settle off where they may say, “You know what, I still have the abilities to work, I still want to work, I still want to make some extra money. And now that I have the ability to do it at home, it’s not as challenging as it once was going to the office.” And they might enjoy it actually more.
Matthew Theal: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Brent Pasqua: It’s fascinating to see these changes and the evolvements. A trend that I see is one that I think will possibly start to happen over the next several years. And that’s a larger gap between the middle and the lower class retirement. More than likely you would think that social security is going to need some type of reform. They’re going to need to make some changes. Right now for retirement age, for anybody born after I think somewhere in the ’50s, is going to be 67. If full retirement age is 67, life expectancy, based on what happens you could start to really see where social security’s full retirement age is more than likely going to have to at some point be 70, or else the pool of money within social security would potentially be at risk.
Brent Pasqua: And your wages actually impact how much you’re going to get from social security. So people are having to possibly work longer. But what I think the concern really starts to come in is, now that pensions are really being fizzled out from so many jobs across the board, that the only place people are able to close the gap between their income and their expenses is through their retirement savings, like 401Ks or their 403Bs and their contributions to their IRA. Because a lot of people who had different jobs before had social security and pension, so that was able to provide enough income for them.
Brent Pasqua: But with that pension factor being gone, and then social security now getting extended out, it means that people now have to have the knowledge and the extra money to be able to save more, invest properly, and have enough by the time that they get retired. But already people who have lower wages or lower income and don’t have enough disposable income to save enough, so how are they going to actually close that gap where when they retire… If social security is possibly going to be less, how are they going to close the gap between their income and expenses at that point?
Matthew Theal: Yeah, I mean, that’s an interesting point. I mean, that’s one of the things that a lot of the retirement researchers are saying is going to happen. The lower middle classes are going to be in trouble when they get to that retirement age. As for social security, the wage base is too low. I believe you stop being taxed after you’ve made… How much was it?
Brent Pasqua: 30. 25 and 32, 34.
Matthew Theal: No, no. The which base that they tax individuals on. Right. Because after you make a certain amount of money you stop paying social security tax.
Brent Pasqua: Oh, yeah.
Matthew Theal: They’re going to get rid of that to refund.
Joshua Winterswyk: I got 127,000 or something like that. That’s around there.
Matthew Theal: Yeah.
Brent Pasqua: While you’re making wages.
Matthew Theal: Right. So for high income earners that really only lasts for half the year. And then that tax goes away. What they’ll end up probably doing is just making that tax permanent, and then that’ll fill up the social security bucket, so to say, for the retirees.
Brent Pasqua: There’s nothing to say that they can’t extend the full retirement age out a few years. 67 is the placeholder right now, but if they keep creeping that out a bit you’re going to force people to work longer. Now, for people who are saving that may be okay, but for people who are generally 50% of the people who collect social security at 62, that provides a big challenge. They’re not going to have very much income at retirement.
Joshua Winterswyk: No. And it goes right in line with the other trend of working longer. What else are you going to do? You’re going to continue to work even longer because you’re not saving at the rate you should be, and social security is not going to be potentially until you’re 67 or later. Those are compounding against you if you really have a goal to retire early or retire at a pretty young age.
Matthew Theal: And then it’s more of living with the kids, right? Getting held up by your children. Then if you want to retire early in your 60s, which is unfortunate, especially because a lot of these boomers are still taking care of their millennial kids who can’t get started. So it’s going to be an interesting 10 years there.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. I think what has to happen is there just has to be more emphasis put on putting more money into your 401K and stretching out that dollar as much as possible, and making sure it’s invested correctly because how many times do you see where somebody has a 401K but they don’t really know what their money is going into, and it’s sitting in the money market account not doing anything because they never really looked at it and they thought somebody else was handling it? They can go 10 years and they’ve lost 10 years of returns on their money, and that’s going to impact the retirement and what they could be enjoying in retirement. And now be struggling to just try and make ends meet once they retire.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah. And I think another trickle down effect with the 401Ks is, through this pandemic I’m seeing a few clients that have mentioned that their employers are cutting back their match or cutting back, not matching at all. Their first thought is then I shouldn’t contribute to my 401K anymore. Then that’s, again, increasing that gap that you’re talking about of not having enough retirement savings going forward because the first thought is, well, if they’re not matching I’m not going to put anything in there. But that also is now lowering your savings rate, hurting your future. So I think that’s another trickle down effect of what’s going on right now and that gap you’re talking about.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. Over the last 30 years we went from employers guaranteeing a pension for the rest of somebody’s life to we’re going to transition to a 401K, but we’re going to match you 6% instead of having your pension, then from 6% and okay we’re going to match 3% of your 401K contributions. Now we’re seeing a lot of these plans go to zero.
Joshua Winterswyk: Right. As it becomes harder we’re not helping you at all anymore.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah, exactly. We covered everything to recovering nothing now.
Joshua Winterswyk: Yeah, exactly.
Brent Pasqua: All right. Let’s get into the RPA recommends. One of the people on the show want to go first. So, Matt, what would you like to tell us about your first recommend?
Matthew Theal: I got a little feedback based on one of our last recommends. I tried that Honey app that you guys were talking about and hyping. It didn’t work for me once. So either I’m not using it correctly or it has a hit rate that’s probably under 10%.
Joshua Winterswyk: I’d imagine it’s operator error. Operator error, or depending on the stores you’re expecting it to use that are just maybe-
Matthew Theal: I mean, I used it all over the internet. My wife and I are doing a little bit of online shopping right now. We were unsuccessful at every ever store we tried.
Brent Pasqua: We used it over the weekend and we did save money. I showed my wife how to use it a couple of months ago when it started coming up on the show. She has been using it and been saving money any time she’s had to find it. You’re not going to find stuff for every store on there. But definitely when it works it’s a great feature. And you don’t have to spend a half hour looking around for stuff, which is pretty cool.
Matthew Theal: Well, here’s the thing I’m going to do. I’ll give it a go for another week. Actually, I’ll give it to the rest of the month. But if it hasn’t saved me money by September 1st I’m going to uninstall it. Reason why is, would you ever think, hey, why on earth is this app free? They’re giving me discounts, blah, blah, blah. It’s because they are selling your data. So they’re selling your browsing data. I’m probably cool on that, but we’ll see.
Joshua Winterswyk: Your browsing data’s already being sold in so many other different ways. And they do talk about it’s a community. So other users are inputting the codes and stuff for you. Well, Matt, I didn’t think it was for you when I recommended it. It’s proving not to be, but I hope at least it saves you some money before September 1st.
Matthew Theal: I just want to try it out. I felt like I wanted to be part of the money club. But seriously, all right, here’s my recommends. This is a short sweet one. As long as you don’t have preexisting medical conditions, and if you’ve been locked up, really social distancing for most of the last six months, find a safe place, a restaurant, a little trip, go out there and do something. Because I think by now if you’ve been following the rules most people have fatigue. Whether if it’s just sitting at a restaurant for 30 minutes outside, you’re not going to get COVID doing that. Going on a little road trip with your wife and family, probably not going to get COVID. Do something, get out, get out of your house, stay safe.
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. Completely agree. That goes right in line with mine. I’ll come back to mine. Josh, what do you have?
Joshua Winterswyk: Mine is a little different. Matt, good recommends. Getting out is good. And I have to piggyback on that. But my recommends what I thought… I used it a couple of times over the weekend, if people haven’t been using it already, is Venmo app. It’s a cash transfer app. I use it with my family, use it with friends, use it with Matt when we book tee times. One person in our foursome pays for the tee time and we got to transfer money the old school which would just to be giving them cash. But the Venmo app actually allows you to send money through the internet to that person. So just very useful. It makes things very convenient. When you’re even out to dinner with someone else and you guys split the check or someone just pays for it and you owe them money. So Venmo. I know there’s a bunch of other ones out there that do the same thing. And that’s just the one that I use currently and definitely recommend Venmo to anyone that needs to transfer money to anyone else.
Brent Pasqua: I’ll take the bill at the restaurant to get the credit card rewards. And then you Venmo me.
Joshua Winterswyk: All of a sudden. Yeah, everyone wants their credit card points.
Matthew Theal: I have all these travel credit card points and I have nowhere to travel to.
Joshua Winterswyk: Well, take that drive up the coast like you talked about and use those travel rewards.
Matthew Theal: Well, I want it for airline tickets. That’s where you save your money. That’s how you fl. You don’t buy airline tickets.
Brent Pasqua: My RPA recommend is right in line with yours, Matt. I took the family to the beach over the weekend. With the COVID fatigue a lot of people are staying in and some people aren’t, but regardless of what your thoughts are really on how to be careful and how not to be careful, I can tell you this. By being outside on the beach most people are super responsible. It’s spread out. People don’t come near you. There’s tons of wind. You have so much space in between you and somebody else. There’s so much sand.
Brent Pasqua: It just feels amazing to be out, to be outside, to get fresh air and just to be doing something different. I’d highly recommend going to the beach. I felt very, very comfortable doing that. I’ve done it a few times now over the last couple of months. And I think with the heat that we’re all having… Regardless of where you are, you have lakes or you have the beaches, whatever it is, go outside, go sit out there. It feels great.
Brent Pasqua: It’s very different than what the pictures of what they portray in the media are, because you see some of these pictures and there’s thousands of people on top of each other. None of that experience has ever been like that for me, everybody is spaced out and nobody wants to come near each other.
Matthew Theal: You mean those fake photos that people send from 4th of July, 2016, and then they can go viral on the internet about some randomly packed beach?
Brent Pasqua: Yeah. Or just crowds on top of each other, Photoshop people in on them. I mean, it’s just-
Joshua Winterswyk: I only went one time. We took our dogs to the dog beach and it was not packed at all. And it was on the weekend.
Brent Pasqua: The hardest thing to do at a lot of these places now is just to get parking. So I would recommend if you are going to go, go early, get your spot, get set up. Don’t fight that kind of crowd. Get in early, that would be the one recommend if you are uncomfortable with any of those types of situations. But I agree with Matthew also, with restaurants. If you’re sitting outside, you have open air, it’s probably pretty safe to do those things and it makes you feel somewhat normal. My recommend is definitely go to the beach and get outside.
Brent Pasqua: All right, well, thank you for listening to the Retirement Plan Playbook. Please give us a review on wherever you stream your podcasts. If you would like to learn more about us or read these show notes, please go to retirementplanplaybook.com. Thanks for listening.
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