Ep 72: What It Means To Be A Fiduciary
The X's & O's
The word “fiduciary” gets tossed around a lot in the financial advising industry.
So what does it actually mean and what difference does it make in your financial planning process?
In this episode, Matthew Theal, Brent Pasqua and Joshua Winterswyk discuss what the difference is between a financial advisor and a fiduciary and what value a fiduciary can add to your financial planning process.
Matthew, Joshua, and Brent discuss:
What a fiduciary is and how they can help you in your financial journey
The different ways financial advisors get paid and which method better suits you
Why RPA Wealth Management switched from commission to fee-based revenue and how it benefits you
Why the meaning of fiduciary has become skewed and how you can be sure you are working with a real one
And more
Resources:
Connect With RPA Wealth Management:
The Hosts:
Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal and Joshua Winterswyk
Transcript
Welcome to the Retirement Plan Playbook with Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk from RPA Wealth Management. In this podcast, we cover current events, retirement planning strategies. And provide you with the tools to help you build a successful retirement playbook in any political or financial landscape.
Join Brent, Matthew and Joshua as they navigate the issues that can make the later stages of your retirement plan, challenging and help you create the best Retirement Plan Playbook. Now let's get to the show.
Welcome back, and welcome to Retirement Plan Playbook. I'm Brent Pasqua. Here with Matthew and Joshua, and we're ready to get started. Today we're gonna be talking about, uh, what is a financial advisor that considers himself a fiduciary. And there's been a lot of discussion about fiduciary, and there's a lot of questions about what an actual fiduciary is.
So we're gonna open that discussion up today and hopefully help people understand a little bit better about what that actually means. But as we kind of kicked this off been curious about what you guys are spending money on this summer. So I've been spending money on vacation. I went on two. I know I talked about 'em on previous podcasts.
But then I recently started buying new work clothes. And I, I hadn't bought work clothes since probably 20 17, 20 18. And you know, my waist has grown a little bit, so I needed to size up. But also a lot of my clothes are old, so all my money's been going there. Thankfully there's some been some good sales on clothes, cause I guess people don't want 'em anymore.
So I've been able to pick stuff off on sale. I have been spending more money on groceries, actually just staying home more, have a, baby at home, not going out as much. And I feel like my grocery bill is just like really skyrocketed. I hear that from everybody right now. And I don't know if it's a combination, you know, everyone's talking about inflation, but also.
Again, cooking more home meals, just because of kind of my situation, you know, staying home more with the baby, stuff like that. But it seems like that's where a lot of my additional money being spent monthly over the last few months has been going it's inflation. I mean, we've done what four or five podcasts talking about inflation this year.
That that's just the cost business these days, even my butcher box went up. Yeah. It's all going up. Yeah. And, and I'm hearing that and I think what's happening is not only people. just knowing that inflation error and cost of food is going up, but now they're even more aware and there are more aware of how much more expensive it is.
And it's a lot, that's a ton. Okay, so let's get into the hot take headlines today. The federal reserve raised interest rates again by 0.7, 5% or 75 basis points. This brings the fed fund rate to 2.5%. Just any thoughts on where this is? yeah, the actual big story is what Drome Powell. The fed chair said on Thursday morning and he said, well, another unusual, large increase of 75 basis points could be appropriate at our next meeting.
That is the decision that will depend on the data we get between now and then. And that's pretty much why the markets have been off to the races. It was what they call a Doish signal. And it pretty much means that they're just gonna watch the economic data and adjust accordingly going forward.
And there's a good chance that the rate hikes might be done if the economy gets weaker this summer and which is different than what they were doing before, which they were kind. Forward guidance or forecasting the rate increases. Yeah. E exactly. And I mean, there are pretty aggressive rate increases. Were they able to break inflation time will tell, um, they might have to come back and be a little bit more aggressive.
But the market's off to the races with this news. So based on where we are right now, if they were to do another increase, do we know approximately when that would. The next meeting's in September. So it would be then, and it'd probably be another 75. But after that, I'd imagine they're for sure.
Done made a lot of people happy. Yeah. Made my portfolio happy. the us economic growth decline in the second quarter and at an annualized rate of 9% and GDP in the first quarter decreased by 1.6%. That's two consecutive cores of negative GDP. I think this is something we constantly keep kind of hammering about, but does this mean that we're finally in a recession?
I mean, that's what I was taught in my economics textbook. Interestingly enough, that the administration's trying to change the definition of a recession. I don't know why they just don't step up and own it. And funny. I was doing some research and the same thing happened in the 1970s with Jimmy Carter's administration.
I know Biden's often compared to the Jimmy Carter administration, but they didn't like the word of recession and so much so that they kind of like were like, oh, you can't use the word. And so they started replacing the word recession with bananas. So we're in a banana as aome right. I read this story too.
You sent it to me. It just made me laugh while I was reading it. No more recession. It's just called banana going forward. So, uh, are we in the banana right now? We're in a banana from my economic textbooks as well, Matt. I mean, that is the definition. I feel like even on the pot, we've been kind of going back and forth of like making excuses not to.
Um, but yes, I mean, that's, that's the definition. So who's been, I know the administration has been trying to hold back from actually calling a recession. From like a technical term, like who's been holding it back to this point. I mean, we're all the way through almost July. And like who's been holding it back from calling it a recession at the beginning of the month.
I mean, most people have kind of seen the ride on the wall. I mean, we first started talking about this back in February, like we started war our clients, Hey, we're probably gonna go into a recession. The, the numbers were there. It says whether you want to admit it or. And as far as economic data, it's always backward looking.
So there's a good chance we might get out of this recession by sometime, you know, this summer or early fall, but we won't know it until Christmas. And to answer your question too. I mean, we were really waiting for the data official data to be released this week, even though we had forecasts, I, we kind of knew what that official data was released just this last week.
So what organization that kind of rings the bell and says, okay, it's official. We're in a recession. Is that the administration is that, who does that? That's a great question. Brent, it's called the EBR, uh, national economic something, something bureau research. Economists. Yeah, I have one more, just real quick stat that we had looked up over the last 10 years, the USS had two or more consecutive quarters of negative, real GDP growth.
The economy was in a recession. You have to go back though to 1947 to find an exception. What this means is every other time we've had two quarters of negative GDP growth. It's been a recession. The only other exception was in 1947. Do you know? What's actually interesting. That's a really good stat you have, but in 1947, that was two years after world war II and we're two years after COVID.
So maybe who knows, maybe we technically aren't in our recession. Mm-hmm , that's an interesting stat though. Cause I know the economy was really weird after world war II, just like it is right now. Mm-hmm um, let's talk a little bit about Walmart. Uh, Walmart cut its quarterly and full year profit guidance saying inflation is causing shoppers to spend more on necessities, such as food and less on items like clothing and electronics.
Uh, Matt, what's your thoughts on the guidance that Walmart put out there? So I thought this was really interesting at first I was like, this is their inventory problem. Right? Cause last quarter they had too much inventory like target. They basically ordered the wrong things, but the more I dug into it and then we kind of got confirmation a few days ago with what best buy said.
That they were cutting their full year guidance. It seems like the low end consumer's really weak. And that impacts Walmart's business. In fact, Chipotle even said during their conference call that the low end consumer is really not going to Chipotle anymore, but their business is still strong because the majority of their consumers are high.
I know Louis Viton Louis. Viton had an excellent quarter as well. So it's kind of like that low end consumer is starting to disappear from the market. And the high end consumer is keeping some brands afloat. And so what does this actually mean? I guess when we look at the economy and like going forward, I think there's certain people that are struggling a lot more than other people.
It's, it's pretty simple if. , the cost of gasoline affects people who make less income. The cost of food affects people who make less income, but if you make a healthy income, you don't really notice it as much. You still have spending power. I think the Walmart also is using inflation a little bit as an excuse here.
Uh, we've seen inventory kind of build over since the beginning of the year. And they've come out with this release before their earnings call. They're saying, you know, inflation has affected us this way. They see the inventory pile up, but then you look at a company like Dick sporting goods, and they're like, it's a healthy increase in inventory.
We were so low. Like we don't have a problem here. So again, I think that it could be broken up in demographics of like, which companies are being affected, but it's not overall affecting everybody. Um, and then what you're also seeing who's benefiting, this is commercial storage space. Commercial storage space is up over 20% year over year.
Those are all store in their inventory. Yeah. And it wasn't an issue before and now it is. And so you see, you know, very, very low vacancy rates all over, you know, the us as far as, storage base. High inventory is a classic sign of our session. So just FYI for the Biden administration. Yeah. But I think also what's weird about that is that inventory right now is low in some areas.
And then inventory is building in others. And is that a, is that more of a company issue who is managing inventory the best way? Cause again, compare Walmart compared to Dick sporting goods, two different issues there. Yeah. And then you can already see when we've talked about discounts, Matt the inventory discounts they're already here, we're seeing them.
And I think that they'll continue. Can someone call the CEO of best buy and ask him to discount the L GTV? I want, send him an email. I'll buy it tomorrow. If you discount it today, I'm in the store tomorrow. If you discount it by 30%, we know if you're in for a outdoor furniture, though, you can get a pretty significant discount on that.
I'm still waiting for that. I'm I'm, uh, I'm being very patient. I want the best. All right. Let's get into the retirement planning corner. Today we want to get into what an actual fiduciary is. It's a term that's loosely used in this industry. And if you go around asking any advisor, if they're fiduciary, they probably are going to tell you yes, I would assume.
But we want to clarify what it actually means to be a fiduciary. What that actual kind of word means. And help give you a better idea of what a fiduciary really does and, and kind of help you navigate through that. So let's start off with the most basic and simple question about it. And what does fiduciary actually mean?
Great question. Brent, a fiduciary is a person or organization that acts on behalf of another person or persons putting their clients' interest ahead of their. With the duty to preserve good faith and trust. Also being a fiduciary that requires being bound both legally and ethically to act on others' best interests.
So you have to put the best interests of your client ahead of your own. Absolutely. And the biggest pro is the advisor. Again, like you said, will put their personal gain above their clients. So basically when you ask somebody, if they're a fiduciary, you're asking them if they're putting their interest ahead of your own or vice versa, do you feel like some advisors like lie?
Like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a fiduciary. That's like, nah, I don't know if you are. Well, maybe they're told that they're a fiduciary or they don't understand. They need to listen to the podcast. Well, that that's true too. So what would it take for somebody to ask an advisor that if they're fiduciary for them to say no, I mean, if they're really honest and they're like, oh no, I follow the suitability standard, which we're gonna talk about next.
But I don't know. So what is that suitability standard? Yeah, so the suitability standard basically says that the investment just needs to be suitable for the client. It doesn't have to be in their best interest, just suitable. And the standards typically followed by insurance agents and stock brokers.
For instance, you know, let's take a simple example. Like, someone getting sold Tesla stock, who is, you know, 65, it is a suitable investment for some 65 year olds, but it might not be in the best interest of another 65 year old. So that's kind of like where the gray area lies. It's uh, I always use the example.
It's like buying a suit, you know, the suit salesman can sell you a suit your size, but a fiduciary actually makes sure it looks good on. I like that. Josh. So basically this all comes down to money yeah. Yes, it does. Brent. So how do financial advisors then get paid? Another great question here. There are basically three ways in which financial advisors are compensated.
The first one is through Aion based model. So it, so product sold, the advisor receives the commission for selling that actual product. Then there's also the second way to get paid as an advisor is through a commissioned fee model. So it's a combination of both being charged a fee to the client, um, and receiving that fee from the client and also the commission base.
And then the last one is the fee only model. This model minimizes the conflicts and ensures that the financial planner acts as a fiduciary. If I'm an advisor, I'm gonna pick option two. It's like the best of both worlds, right? Because you could say you're a fiduciary, but you could also make commission on the side.
So it's like, you could change the seat. You. So one second, you could be acting as a fiduciary and the next second you could be like, actually I'm gonna go suitability standard. Now make some money. That's confusing. It's very confusing. But I think that's how a lot of consumers get duped. And then you don't have to actually change chairs.
Like you could stay in the same chair and do that. It'd be funny if they made them change chairs. Like if one chair said fiduciary on the back and the other said suitability on the back, and then the advisor were like, oh, hold on. I gotta move to my other. Or change their outfit. Yeah. Like put a different jacket on because I think they're technically supposed to have two different business cards.
Right? Like one's your suitable business card. One's your fiduciary business card, right? Right. You are actually, you're a hundred percent correct. When I think of that model too. I think of like the big banks. Yes, me too. Yeah. JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley. That's where your money is at your, your guy's definitely doing a little bit of both.
You know, I got two accounts for you, one commission based one fee based, but they're both great. Yeah. Let, let me clarify too, what commission actually means, because when you do let, let's say your, your advisors recommending you do something like purchase some type of annuity or insurance product or mutual fund.
When you buy that, when your money goes into it, the advisors paid a commission for. If they're under that commission model. So there's a lump sum payment that's given to the advisor in exchange for you purchasing that product. So the advisor can pick and not all products have the same commission, so the advisor can pick whatever product they want you to go in and recommend that to you.
and they can pick the one that potentially has the highest commission, because that's what actually pays the advisor the most. Yeah. And it's just not transparent. I think a good example that a lot of people can understand is like when you buy life insurance, when you buy like really a lot of insurances, right.
Even like your property and casualty, like the agent actually gets paid commission through the premium of the product. Um, and that's the same way with the investments and, and the insurance. I just think that commission plus fee model, you shouldn't be allowed to do it. It should be. I'm either commission only, or I'm fee only.
And those are the only two sides cuz some people might like the commission idea. Hey, that's kind of cool. So let me give you an example of how that would actually visually look. So let's say you have $200,000 and the advisor says, okay, I want you to put your a hundred thousand dollars here. And here, meaning that you're gonna put your money into it and it's gonna pay the advisor commission.
So let's say it's 6%. The advisor's gonna get paid $6,000. And then he says, okay, now put your other a hundred thousand dollars into this portfolio. And we're gonna charge let's just say one and a half percent advisory fee on this ongoing. And that's gonna pay the advisor potentially $1,500 a year plus or minus market fluctuation.
And so he now has money right up. But then he also has money that's reoccurring and ongoing. So you have commission up front and fee ongoing is sort of how that works. That model works win-win for the advisor. Yeah. You shouldn't be allowed to do that. It should be one or the other, like you have to be fully commissioned or fully fee only when I'm in charge of the SCC.
I'm gonna pass that pool. we'll campaign for you, Matt. So. Fee only, and fee models are really kind of two different things, right? Fee, model doesn't if you're doing commission and the fee model, you're not fee only you're selling product and charging a fee to manage assets. And I think, uh, it's important because a lot of investment firms call it fee based.
So that it sounds like fee only. Correct. But it's the blend like Matt, you've been talking about of both charging commissions and fees, but they call it fee based. And I think it's kinda a little bit misleading and not. So here, here's what you probably need to clarify. Are you a fiduciary? And then are you fee based fee only or commission, then you can really determine which one the advisor is.
I'm just sitting back and listening to this and I'm confused. So a consumers must get really confused because it's not easy. It's not clear. And there's so many ways you could trick people with words and you know, most people who are listening to this podcasts are probably like, I'm already lost. What's the best.
So. Right. And the reason why this is so important is because your outcome and how well your investments potentially perform. And what you do later in life is impacted based on the recommendations your advisor gives. And so if you're being put into products that are either not suitable for you or not beneficial for you, but pays the advisor a lot of money down the road, your life is gonna be impacted.
So it's very important to understand what you're getting involved into as you kind of approach any of these decisions. So with that being said, did we even go through what a fee only is? A fee only model is? No, we haven't really clearly explained that. But in my opinion fee only is the only type of advisor who's actually a fi.
And what fee only means is that the, the advisor is only compensated by the client. There's no compensation for any other sources. There's no referral fees, there's no commission. The client pays the advisor. They either write them a check or they get their fee deducted from their investment management account with an invoice.
That's the only true fi. I think really what that does is it removes those conflicts of interest. Brent, you touched on that removing those conflicts of interest will allow the advisor and the client to not only build a great relationship, but give those best recommendations without any other conflicts and the advisors also in that model filling the same thing, the, the client's feeling.
I mean, if the portfolio is going down, then the, the advisory fee is going down with it. The portfolio's going up and you're having good market returns, then yes, the fee is gonna get more as the account grows. And I think for most people would rather see their account grow and they're willing to pay a little bit more to have their account grow.
I mean, you're, you're impacted by your performance and results. Mm-hmm you know who a true fiduciary is? I don't like these types of people, but lawyers, lawyers are true fiduciaries. You know, your cost up front, you know, the retainer's $2,000, $5,000, if you can't. Yeah, I would say not always, but if you can't afford the retainer, then they put you on contingency.
And essentially what that means is, you know, say your, your case wins a million dollars. They'll get 10% of it. And you know that when you sign the agreement with the lawyer, that's the same as with a financial advisor who's fee. You know, your cost, you see your invoice, you know what you're signing up for when you're working with someone who's fee based or commission based, you don't know your cost.
Yeah. I'd like to have some lawyers on here. We can have that open discussion about how they're paid. No, just about what, what their industry is on fiduciary and or all lawyers fiduciaries and so forth. I think technically they're supposed to be right. Yeah. Yeah. They are. Yeah. So what types of advisors are not fiduciary?
Ooh, got a, got a bunch of good examples here, insurance agents. Uh, that's just the one that pops right into my mind. Anyone that you know, gives you. Advice at the bank. We talked about that you walk into the, the big banks and, and they're fee based so they can sell both sides. Normal, just investment consultants.
A lot of times, these are the investment consultants you walk in and see at like the retail. Schwab fidelity. That's a good one. You know, those not, maybe not are most likely not held to that fiduciary standard brokers. Uh, we know the stock broker model. We know who they are. Um, they're trying to sell you that mutual fund with the biggest commission.
And then also, um, you know, just the car salesman, right? Those salesmen that come and they'll sell you whatever you need for the highest commiss. You probably add the solar guy, guy coming to your house, trying to sell you solar. He's really, probably not looking out to you, probably trying to sell you the most expensive system possible.
They tell you it's 40,000, but you end up only paying 25. Cause you negotiated down after government credits and all this other stuff. That sounds like something you would purchase, man. Solar. Yeah, just getting upsold on starting at 20,000 and all of a sudden you got a $45,000 roof. No, I'm not interested in solar until you could properly store the electricity for a couple days on a battery.
So what you're telling me about who is not a fiduciary. Could be somebody that is fee based, but they're an insurance agent. So that part of the time they're sitting with you as an insurance agent, they're really not a fiduciary. And then the other part that they're sitting with you, they're kind of a fiduciary maybe.
Yeah. It's like half their job. They're doing the right thing. And the other half they're doing the wrong. Or could do the wrong thing. No, they're doing the wrong thing. I'm gonna come out and say it I'll play both sides of this, I guess today I'm sitting in the middle so what is a fee only advisor?
Yeah. So there's someone who's gonna make zero commissions from any of their recommendations. If they tell the client, you know, you should purchase this mutual fund, they're not getting compensated for. Unless it's agreed upon in the client, in the contract with their client and the client's gonna compensate them.
They're not getting compensated by Vanguard or American funds or Schwab or TD or JP Morgan, or even an insurance company. There's no payment, just the client pays them. That's it? It's very simple. So if you wanted to work with a fee only advisor, where would you find him? And like, what's the best approach to.
Yeah, there's actually a couple good associations out there that hold their advisors, if you're a part of the association to that fiduciary standard. So NAFA is one you can go to their website and you can also search for advisors in your local area fee only network, um, is another, and then also the CFP board.
So cfp.net, um, you're able to search out, um, advisors, get a little bit of insight of who they are. You know, to give an example of one of the organizations like Napa, they actually require their advisors to go through a qualification process on their fee only structure and making sure that they're not accepting any commissions for their work.
So it kind of takes that standard, above and beyond, cuz they're actually holding the whole company liable for, for making sure they're calling themselves family and doing the right thing. So I think, I guess the next question, probably a lot of people wanna know is what are we. We're fee only.
We only get compensated if our client agrees to compensate us and, it's pretty straightforward. They could play a financial felony fee. They could play an hourly fee or they can play an investment management fee. Yeah. And I think that's important too, because when I started in the business, I wasn't fee only.
And it wasn't until many years of being in the business that it took me to really figure out what was, and how to work in the client's best interest. I always at heart wanted to do what was in the client's best interest. But I think after you work so long in, in industry, you can start to figure out what really is best practice and in the client's best interest.
And although making a switch from being like a fee based model, which I was previously. To a fee only model from a compensation standpoint or a monetary standpoint, that was not a smart business decision. Like, I mean, that's completely like many people aren't gonna make that decision because you can see commissions in this industry are tremendous, but the industry has also evolved over the last five to seven years where there's so many better products out there for clients to fit their needs, that don't pay a commiss.
That if you gave the client that same product with a commission, it's gonna be either more expensive or give the client less return. And to me, that was never going to be in the best interest of the client. And that's when we all here collectively decided to make that switch and B fee only, and that's purely a hundred percent based on doing what's right for the client.
That is the only reason to. I think that's why you also see so many, that's just great, great summary, Brent. And you can see though, why so many advisors struggle to make that change? You know, cuz there's still not a lot of fee only advisors in America. I mean, what's this percentage of fee only advisors like less than 10%.
Yeah. I'd imagine it's probably around five is that's one of the main reasons is what you just explained. Right? Like it's really hard to make that decision and give up revenue and money and you know, to do what's right. I just, uh, stand by that, in what you said. Great summary, those, um, commission based guys, they don't want to get their Porsches Ferrari or Teslas impounded.
So they gotta, they gotta keep the, keep the money wheels going, you know? Yeah. I think we have a funny joke. Constantly that comes up in here from time to time, especially in a time in inflation, you know, when you're going the grocery store and you it's cost you an extra $200, you're like, well, we could always go back to fee base.
yeah, let's not do that. No, we, we would never do that. Uh, if someone is looking to hire a new advisor, how do they look for that true fiduciary? How do you kind of determine if they are the fiduciary? If you know, let's say you've gone on now, or you started to try sift through, how do you know for. Well, I would look 'em up on Napa or the feeling network and if they don't have a profile there that's a good starting spot that they're probably not a true fiduciary since like Josh said, they do have some tests and regulations to actually get on those websites.
But the other thing is you could, sit across from the person, look 'em in the eye and ask 'em how they get. And, you could kind of find out how honest that advisor is and if they say, well, I'm making, I get paid by the, this company for, for the product, then, then you know, they're, fee based.
They're not a true fiduciary. Yeah. And if they're telling you, they get paid by the company, I mean, how you don't know which company pays them, what you don't know, which product is better than the other. So you're putting them trust in them. Picking the best product for you that may not pay them the most.
Yeah. I think that question's just great. Ask them how they get paid. Um, and the less transparency, the, the less, it's probably good for you. Yes. Yeah. If you, if you don't know exactly where every penny is going and. It's probably not very transparent. Yep. Before we close up, can we talk about one more thing?
I, I wanna talk about that being like a captive insurance agent or broker. So like if you're working with someone at Wells Fargo, JP Morgan chances are in your portfolio, you're not gonna get Vanguard funds. You're probably gonna get Wells Fargo funds, JP Morgan funds, something like that. You're not gonna get proprietary products.
Yes. Proprietary products. You're not gonna get the best. And that's the same on the insurance side, there's tons of different insurance companies, all offering different rates. So if you're going with someone who, you know, only works with Jackson or T I a a, then you're only gonna get that. Right. That's what you're gonna get.
You're not gonna get the whole market. Who you're working, with's not independent. They work for one company and they're gonna offer you only that company's products. Exactly. So that's why, when you're looking at the investment advice industry, you definitely want to pick a firm that is independent, right?
Not to make things more challenging, but there's a lot of advisors that obviously that work for firms that work for insurance companies and so forth and compensation is built off also based on production. And so the more assets the advisor brings in and the more products they're. The more they're compensated, our bonuses become.
And I think that's also one thing that's a reminder of, like we said, in the beginning, this really for a lot of people comes down to money. Mm. Totally. So that was a little bit heavy so let's lighten it up. Uh, let's talk about RPA recommends. Uh, does anybody have anything interesting to recommend today?
I'll start in the beginning of the show, we talked about kind of what we've been spending our money on or kind of. What's increased. And, and I said, groceries, cooking at home a little bit more. So with that, I also have been implementing some new recipes, looking for new recipes. I found a really good teriyaki sauce.
They actually call it barbecue sauce. It's a Japanese barbecue sauce. Uh, they sell it at whole foods. I think they sell it at most grocery stores now, but it's called and I don't, you know, let me know if I'm not pronouncing this correctly, but it's, Balkin. Are you familiar with it? No, I'm not. But if you showed me the picture I'm I'm, it has like a white label red cap.
But they have like a hot and spicy one. They have like a regular one and I've been marinating a bunch of meats in it. And absolutely love it. I think they even sell it at Costco now. Um, but it's called Japanese barbecue sauce. I think it's pronounced Balkins. But look that up, spice up a new dish.
Really. I loved Japanese food. So I think that's a great recommend. It was interesting cuz when I first bought it, cuz I saw it, you know, it's been saw it at Costco. I've seen it even on like my social media and people using it. Some of like even the foodie people that I follow and um, it says barbecue sauce, but it's, it's really more of like, Japanese style, which is more like a teriyaki.
So it's not like your traditional American barbecue sauce, just a FYI there. I feel like some of the best food I've ever eaten is like. Fusion food and like that. And I throw it on everything. I've, I've thrown it on salmon. I've thrown it on steak chicken. So all good. That's my recommends for today. Um, we haven't talked about golf for a while on here.
Josh, Brent, as you know, I'm not a good golfer. I, I would say, um, average to below average and being an average to below average golfer means you get to hit a lot of different golf balls, cuz you're probably misplacing your golf ball all over the course. um, so I've tried every brand. and by far the best golf ball is Titleless pro V one S or the pro V one Xs.
This is the first time I've heard you say this. Yeah, no, these are incredible golf balls. It feels like you're hitting a rock and it just flies off your clubface. There's a reason. Most of the tour pros play they're great golf balls. It's worth the extra $10 over the other balls that are on the market.
I highly recommend everyone. Prob V one S or prob B one Xs. Now it's just being sarcastic. You've told me this a lot of times I haven't made like the Titleless prob V one switch. I select the ball I'm using. But eventually I will have to try them out. When you, I was so mad at myself for waiting so long , but I guess I had to play every ball and lose every other brand.
That's just a lot of money when you're losing a lot of balls. It is, but it is helped my game a lot. I mean, I think I've probably got an extra five, 10 yards on my drive. This is just rockets off my club face. All right. I wanna pay a little more attention. Next time we play, maybe we flight. Maybe we'll have to get you a box, Josh, and then just switch you over and convert.
I don't know. I, I just wanna, so hold on, let me, let me see Matt play next time. I wanna watch him a little more closely and then we'll go from there. I don't think that's a good judge. it's not fair to the golf ball. Yeah. Watch somebody else. But Titleist might have something to say about that. Uh, so one of my recommends, um, I want to talk about, we talked about obviously inflation things are getting more expensive and that's hard on many people, but there are some upsides to small ones, but there are some upside to inflation.
And that's that fixed online savings account rates are going up and it's something we've touched on a lot during past podcasts, but now it's getting to a point where we're starting to look fairly decent on savings accounts rates. Now, again I would check out, you can go to nerd wallet and kind of just run an estimate.
They have listed on their, their page, uh, the different savings account rates at different institutions. But Marcus live Oak bank capital one, discover American express. All of their rates have been going up rapidly. And with the big fed raising rates this week, again, big increases to the savings account rates.
I would consider checking 'em out because they are F, D I C insured. A lot of 'em make sure to double check that on the ones you're looking at, but rates are looking very healthy again. Plus 1.5%. Yeah, great recommends. I think it's a, a good time right now to say if your money's still at like the bank in, in a regular bank savings account with a low interest rate and you haven't seen that increase, it's like your trigger to, to go look for a new online savings account, cuz those rates are going up so great.
Recommends. Yeah, it's basically a hundred dollars a month, per hundred thousand you have in the bank. I know that sounds like a high dollar amount, we see a lot of clients and prospects. We have one 50, a hundred, just sitting around in a bank of America savings account, moving online.
It's extra a hundred dollars a month. Yeah. And that rate's going up quickly. So, I mean, it makes sense to get in that a hundred dollars, two boxes of, uh, Titleless pro V one S there you go. And one last thing on that with technology nowadays being so E. For you to sync a bank account, your, your normal brick and mortar bank account with an online bank account and transferring back and forth.
I mean, that stuff is so an opening account. So I mean, everything is just so much easier nowadays. Yeah, it is. And if you don't know how to do it, ask your grandson, or you could ask Josh, like I did. all right. So as advisors, we love helping people. That's why we do it. you'd like to schedule an appointment with any of us, please go to RPAWealth.com and schedule a complimentary consultation.
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