Ep. 115: End of Year Financial Strategies and Key Highlights from 2024
The X's and O's
In this final episode of 2024, Brent Pasqua and Matthew Theal take a reflective dive into the major events and financial highlights of the year. From top year-end planning strategies to the evolution of AI and its impact on finance, this episode is packed with actionable advice and thought-provoking discussions. They also share personal anecdotes, client success stories, and exciting plans for 2025. Tune in for insights that will help you close out the year strong and set the stage for success in the year ahead!
Time stamps:
[00:00:00] Welcome and End-of-Year Announcements
[00:02:00] The Claremont Wine Walk: A Community Engagement Highlight
[00:05:00] Year-End Financial Planning Strategies
Maxing Out 401(k) Contributions
Tax Loss Harvesting Tips
[00:11:00] Rebalancing Your Portfolio and Taking RMDs
[00:13:00] The Importance of Updating Your Estate Plan
[00:14:00] The Case for Gifting: How to Share Wealth Strategically
[00:16:00] Reflecting on 2024: Market Trends, AI, and Political Events
[00:24:00] Financial Lessons from Elon Musk and Technological Breakthroughs
[00:27:00] Bitcoin and Crypto in 2024: ETF Approval and Market Growth
[00:28:00] Cancer Vaccine Innovations: A Look at Biotech Progress
[00:32:00] Family and Gift Ideas: What’s Hot This Holiday Season
[00:41:00] Closing Remarks and New Year Wishes
Thank you for joining us throughout 2024. We’ll be back in 2025 with more insights, strategies, and exciting new content! Happy holidays!
Connect With Evermont Wealth:
Want to make 2025 your most financially confident year yet? Visit www.evermont.com to schedule your complimentary consultation.
Subscribe & leave a review! Stay informed and stay in control of your financial future.
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was automatically generated. Please excuse any typos or transcription errors.
Matthew: Hey everyone. Welcome in. This is Matthew from retirement plan playbook. Just wanted to let you know that this will be our last show of the year.
So we're going to take a little break here for the holidays and we will be back in 2025 with our new, new format. We've gotten a lot of good feedback on the new format of the show. So we'll be back. Our first show will be released on Thursday, January 16th. So back with the podcast in 2025 and this is our last show of 2024.
So I hope you enjoy it.
Welcome to the Retirement Plan Playbook hosted by Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk of Evermont Wealth. This podcast dives deep into investment strategies, retirement planning, and current events, equipping you with the insights needed to craft a robust retirement playbook adaptable to any political or economic climate.
Join Brent, Matthew, and Joshua as they guide you through the complexities of retirement planning. Offering expert advice. to tackle challenges and the later stages of your journey. It's time to build your optimal retirement playbook. Now let's dive into today's episode.
Brent: All right, let's do it. Welcome to retirement plan playbook. Hello Brent. So you want to talk about the wine walk? I do, but we should, we mentioned why Josh isn't here. Josh is out sick. Yeah. He's got the stomach bug.
So, but I know it's been going around and it's super contagious. So we're keeping him out We don't want it. It's near the holidays. I know your kids don't want that
so Josh is out He wanted to potentially come in today, but we're like, no, it's not gonna work. So
Matthew: yeah because of the holidays We've got a condensed schedule here. So there's This is our only time to record. So no Josh, just the two of us today. And you said you want to talk about the wine walk.
Brent: Yeah. So we're in downtown Claremont, which is like a, an older school, like downtown area, and a lot of the shops will open up during that time, serve wine, and it just brings exposure to the business.
We've been in this area for two years and we haven't participated in it yet. And we're actually on the north side of downtown. So it is a little bit, it's like, let's call it like a half a block, maybe higher than any other stops. And so what we wanted to do was make sure that even though we were a little bit higher, that we had a good enough setup where people would actually come up.
And so we decorated the front, we had balloons out there. We put a tent in our parking lot. We knew it was gonna be cold. So we had heat, so we had heaters going and then we had the game on. We had music going under the tent. And then we also brought in really good food. So it wasn't a food truck, but it was a setup where the guy had a pizza stone maker that was out there, pizza, big pizza oven.
And he made a total of 95 pizzas and he actually ran out of pizza a half hour before we ended, which was okay. I mean, there was less people starting to trickle in, but we, we definitely need to account for, he said he probably could have made another 25 pizzas, which is, I thought it was a lot, but I don't, I don't know if it's actually that high just cause we didn't have that many people.
But the two things that I really wanted besides just a great setup where people enjoyed being at the two things that I wanted was really good food and really good wine. Cause that's going to make it and people were coming and they were staying and they had a, it seemed like a very good time. So it was kind of like our introduction to the area because for a long time, our sign wasn't on the building and we were just in here remodeling, working and kind of going through the, getting this place to where we wanted it.
And I thought the wine walk was a very, very cool event. And it also led us to. Be able to realize like what we would need to do to do client events here. And to be, to be able to host I think we have a great setup for some of those options.
Matthew: Yeah. So we're going to do it again next year.
Brent: I think it's, I think it's a great community event.
We had, we, not only that, but I thought it was, I loved having our clients here. Like that's what, what made it for me.
Matthew: You had a few clients to stop by. Wasn't everybody was what three to three to five families. We
Brent: probably had more than that. I would say like seven or eight clients that had rolled through here that we had conversations with, plus some of them had their kids here and stuff, which was great.
But a lot of people that we knew came through here and I thought it was a great event for just the exposure that it gave us of what we do and why we're here. And I thought our setup was great. You know, there's a beer walk in June. You want to do the beer walk? I would definitely be interested in the beer walk.
I think that'd be a super cool event also. So yeah, I am definitely interested in doing that.
Matthew: I mean, I had a great time. You know, I thought it was wonderful, a little stressful, but you know, we have a lot to live up to next year because a lot of people we're saying that we were the best stop.
Brent: Yeah. And I think that we, we, we did a really good job this time. Now we have the template for what we need and maybe we'll make a couple of little adjustments here and there. But I thought. We did really well for the first time and our wives were a great part. My wife helped a lot. Just making sure we had all the right stuff for the setup.
Oh, the balloons were great. The, the tent was great. The tabletops and the heat and all that. She just, she did a really good job helping out with that. And we've hosted a lot of parties and family. And so we, Have a pretty good routine of what we know, what we need to do to be good host. And I thought she hit a homerun with that too.
And we were very appreciative of our wives all being here early to helping set up and do the things that we did to get there. We did put a ton of effort into it and I thought that it showed.
Matthew: Right. Yeah, absolutely. Great, great event. Alright, so we start talking about some year end planning strategies here.
We're at it's December a couple days from Christmas One jump into that.
Brent: Yeah, I just I cannot believe we're already at the end of the year I mean, it just feels like the first year comes the first quarter is the one that seems a little slow But then it's like second quarter, third quarter. And here we are, the holidays and the holidays always fly by.
But I know some of these strategies you may have some time still to do. You probably want to start implementing. I mean, what is your year in strategies that you would recommend?
Matthew: I saw, I'll start with one. I think the easiest. One to pick and kind of the low hanging fruit is just to max out your retirement contributions or make, make sure they are and your 401k is the one you can't go backwards and max out.
So that needs to be maxed out by you know, the end of this year. So by, you know, December 31st, you can next year still contribute to an IRA and max that for the 2024 year. You can't go backwards on a 401k like you can on an IRA. And you have this strategy that's kind of unique that, that paycheck bonus strategy that you tell a lot of clients to do right at the end of the year to catch their max.
How's that work?
Brent: Yeah. So if you know that you're going to be getting a, you know, a bonus at the end of the year, you could put a large portion or all of that bonus into the 401k if you haven't already maxed it out. And I think that's a great option because then you're not being taxed on that bonus.
You're keeping 100 percent of that in your back pocket or whatever you're allowed to defer into the 401k. If you're not getting a bonus at the end of the year, cause a lot of companies don't always pay bonuses at the end of the year. That's some of them paying the first quarter. First quarter is popular.
Is that you could take your last paycheck or two that you're owed for the end of the year and 100 Contribute that into your 401k plan. So that's another option Also, just change your election contribution on your plan to 100 go into your 401k I know that's a little bit harder because it is the end of the year and people are spending more money for Christmas gifts and everything that goes into the holidays But if you do have a little bit of wiggle room, increase your contributions and just defer a little bit of, of that money.
It may give you a little bit less money on your, in your front pocket, but at least it's keeping more money in your back pocket. Right. Right.
Matthew: And then so you jumped another one.
Brent: Yeah. So my next one that I think is an important one is tax loss harvesting.
Matthew: Oh, that's a good one.
Brent: There's probably not a lot of that.
So there's a lot going on right now because the market has done so well. But what that is, is let's say you bought a stock this year, last year, and whenever you bought it, and the stock's down, you can go in and sell that stock, take the loss on it, and you can either just carry that loss to your tax return, or you could sell some of your gains that you have to utilize those losses to maybe become a little bit more liquid, or to buy something else.
We, we generally are looking at tax off loss harvesting throughout the year, but a lot of times we pull the trigger for us with a lot of clients at the end of the year.
Matthew: Yeah. I think, you know, for the year we did that with a real estate ETF that we owned. I think we did that for a few clients who had the tax loss there.
I've been kind of doing bond funds here, there with clients if they have a bond fund, that's underperformed. We've been taking a tax loss. And then on my personal side, I had a oil stock that I've owned for two years. It just hasn't worked out. It's been negative. And you know, I cut that the other day to get a little tax loss for myself so I can net it against some gains in my portfolio.
But you know, it's safe to say if this is a strategy that you, You want to do that in your client. We've been doing this for you already. You know, so if you're not a client, you might want to work with an advisor who does this kind of strategy like we do. And you know, we could do this next year for you
Brent: in a pro tip is to, I mean, It's not just this when you bought the stock.
I mean, there's dividends that your stock has probably has been reinvesting and potentially when those dividends are reinvesting, some of those purchases are at losses. So you can go into kind of the lots of when those are were and kind of pick and choose a little bit of some cells, but there, there's some things that you can do to try to capture some losses or offset some gains.
It is a good time for that. And we're at the end of the year. So if you're not working with the advisor, I think it's hard pressed that a lot of people do that. But if you are working with advisor, they should know.
Matthew: Right. Yeah, absolutely. I'll take the next one. So you could, you know, review and rebalance your portfolio.
So when we're looking at your portfolio and, you know, just your overall net worth, I personally don't like a lot of people looking at their investments too often throughout the year. There's just too many ups and downs in the markets. Personally, I think the end of the year is a great time. To, you know, take an overall look at your finances, look at your balance sheet, see how you've done over the last year.
Most likely you should be up the markets done really, really well. So you should be seeing some growth in your overall portfolios and net worth. And then look to potentially rebalance your portfolio. Because we've had such a big year, your stocks have done really well. Your bonds probably did about four to 5%, but when the stocks are doing 25%, they're going to be a lot bigger than the bonds on growth.
So you could sell some of your stock by bonds. It's a popular rebalance strategy. I have a feeling a lot of big mutual funds are going to be rebalancing here coming up at the end of the year. Probably taking some profits you know, reinvesting funds into maybe some stocks I think are going to do better in 2025.
And then that'll continue into the first quarter of next year. So it's just a prime time to be rebalancing your portfolio, kind of trimming the hedges, so to say.
Brent: Yes. Yeah. And if you're over 73 you want to make sure that you've taken your required minimum distributions. You know, we obviously know there's a significant penalty.
For distributions that you did not take. So if your distribution was, let's just say 10, 000 and you forgot it you have a 5, 000 penalty. And so you do not want to forget to take your RMDs. Now this has moved before the RMD age or required minimum distribution age was 70 and a half. Then it moved to 72.
It's pushed now to 73. So you want to make sure that you're taking a requirement of distributions before the end of the year. So that is a, a definitely end of the year thing that has to get done if you're at that age.
Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. And if you turned 73 this year, you became RMD age. You technically have until April to take it.
Brent: But in that year you would have two distributions. Exactly.
Matthew: But I say don't do it. I say take it the year it's due. You're going to create too much confusion.
Brent: How many more strategies do you have left? I think one more, the, I always think that this is a good time to update your estate plan. Okay. It is a big discussion that I like to have with clients in the last quarter of the year because this is a good time to review documents.
If you know, get your documents updated by the end of the year, that way you go into the next year feeling refreshed. If you've had any particular life changes, whether it's. Executors or trustees in your trust that are no longer able to do it. A lot of times people will do their, their trust when their kids are potentially, you know, minors and now their kids are older and they still have, you know, their sibling or their aunt or uncle or somebody else that is the executor and trustee that needs to get updated or somebody may have passed away, who's an executive trustee.
Go get that updated. Or maybe you've had another kid and they're not inside of your trust that needs to be updated. There's a lot of events that can obviously happen in our life. That requires us to update our estate plan. It's probably not something you need to update every year or even another two or three years, but you definitely want to make sure each year you're looking at it to see if there are any updates that you need to have.
Matthew: Yeah, definitely. Good, good advice. And then we say, get those reviewed by a lawyer, probably at least every five years, just to make sure you're current with the law or I got one more left and then we'll, we'll wrap this up, but I think one of our more popular podcasts we've done within the last, you know, three to six months was the gifting podcast.
So this is, you know, a great time of year to gift you know, whether that's the grandkids to your kids and, you know, we're not talking you know, race cars or, you know, toys or, you know, Lululemon clothes, you know, we're talking actual money that you could, you know, give your, your kids or grandkids to help them out and, you know, help them for the future.
But also, you know, help them now.
Brent: I think gifting is such a great tool to be able to utilize, not just because of estate tax purposes. But just be able to, to share and pass on wealth. And one of the things that I said on a previous podcast was, you know, this is probably going to be your beneficiaries, your kids, or whoever's money, regardless, why not pass it on to them at an age where you can see them enjoy it rather than just passing on this big chunk of money all at one time.
And so I think it is important to, if you have the means to gift that you do consider making those gifts, the gifting amount that you could pass on this year per person. So each individual person can give another person 18, 000 and next year, that's moving to 19, 000 and there's different ways to gift.
Maybe your kids are in a lower tax bracket. You could pass on some shares that you have of some Apple stock or Microsoft star stock that you bought a while ago that you don't want to sell for capital gains reasons. But the end of the year is a great time to gift.
Matthew: Totally. And I think what we're saying is think of it this way, your kids inheriting their money in this, in their sixties or seventies, which would most likely mean you live till your eighties or nineties, which we are seeing a lot of people live to, you know, them inheriting 1.
5 million then or them getting 18, 000 a year. Now that 18, 000 a year now is going to help them a lot more than the 1. 5 million when they're in their sixties or seventies.
Brent: And we saw, I think it was on CNBC. We saw this stat. That the boomer generation is the generation that is least likely to be gifting right now and passing on money.
I saw that. What's with that? I don't know. I don't, maybe it's just because we're in that era right now, but we know that the boomer generation has the most money historically than any other generation, and they're not passing it on. They're passing it on at death. And we see so many people that just pass, you know, they, they don't spend their money or they just pass it on.
And they They die and then they, you know, whoever gets it is either older or they, you know, they're not at a stage where they'd need it so much where they could have used it, you know, 20 years earlier to really transition you know, their situation.
Matthew: Yeah. That's wild. I mean, you can't take it with you.
So,
Brent: you know, come up with a plan now. Yeah. And the one thing I think that maybe people just don't understand is the tax implications. When you're passing on wealth, that's, it's not a tax implication to you unless you're passing on. You're selling shares to do it, but it's not a tax implication. You're writing them a check or transferring them some money and it's not a taxable event to them.
It's just a, you know, you're writing them just like you would a Christmas check. It's not
Matthew: income tax. It's not,
Brent: nothing is taxable. It's just, you're passing on your wealth. So it is something, a strategy to think about.
Matthew: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I think 2024 is a pretty wild year. Would you say that? I do. I
Brent: think, I don't know that I would classify as wild.
Matthew: Really? Oh, cause I think it was,
Brent: what, what makes you think it was wild?
Matthew: The Republican presidential candidate was shot out at a speech and then shot out in his own golf course. So he's almost assassinated twice. And then he won the election while the richest man in America, who was a Democrat. Flipped Republican,
Brent: which has been happening for a while,
Matthew: has been happening for a while, but was on the campaign trail the final month with the Republican nominee campaigning for him to be the president.
Brent: Yeah. And I think the other interesting thing about all of that is just the sediment. Shifted so drastically this year from what was sort of a different mindset coming out of COVID. Right. Like we saw this whole like cancel culture and we saw a lot of this different sort of sediment that was out there.
Matthew: People being mean to each other.
Brent: Yeah, but that's still happening. That's not changing because both parties I think are mean to each other. True. But now I think like sort of people have shifted and they're not accepting the way that things were for a period of time. And now it's shifting and it will shift back to the.
The new way and force eight years, but here we are. We're kind of getting rid of, rid of something and starting something new.
Matthew: Yeah. Personally, I'm happy that's over. But do you have any stories that you thought were big in 24? You want to highlight?
Brent: I have financial stories that I think were, were big.
I mean, I think that there was, we came in talking member all last year about interest rates. And we talked about that all year on the podcast. And then. We thought they were going to come into this year and slash right away. And they didn't. And then it came June and they weren't, and then we're having this inflation issue and they still weren't doing it.
And the market started to say, have some pretty massive sell offs and they're calling for the feds to come in and do like an emergency cut and they didn't do it. And then we got to September and then they've, they finally made some cuts. I thought that was interesting because we thought it was going to happen earlier in the year and it didn't.
Matthew: Yeah, yeah, we finally got the interest rate cuts. I would imagine we don't get too many more from here Maybe one or two and then I think the Fed's gonna have to stop You know, the economy is a little too strong in certain areas and, you know, we still have some inflation we're dealing with and that inflation is probably going to be here for a number of years just based on the demographics of the country.
Brent: Yeah. I don't, I think maybe outside of some of the geo political stuff too, or like some of the wars that have been kind of going on. I don't feel like it was that much of a, like a, a big changing year. Although I think the biggest thing that has changed this year is the evolution of AI. And I think we're becoming, and we're starting to already see it that we're becoming more dependent on it and we're utilizing it more.
Although I think still that a majority of people aren't even using the basics of it, like chat, GBT. I don't think it's mainstream yet.
Matthew: Yeah, I agree. I think what, where you're going to see it most likely change is just in within the workplace. I don't think everybody will ever adopt, you know, like chat deep GPT style, what I see happening is more like, you know, AI is just going to slowly start replacing jobs, easiest jobs to do first.
And then, you know, the harder jobs as it, as it gets better and, or it's going to be like a tool. So like a financial advisor. A lawyer and accountant. I don't think they're disappearing, but I would imagine every lawyer, financial advisor, and accountant is using just AI software, you know, within the next five years.
And it's, it's more like their assistant, right. Helping them in the background, right. Review documents make sure everything's, you know, checked and balanced.
Brent: Yeah. Like one of the, to give an example, like one of the softwares that we were talking about after the future proof conference was. An AI software that analyzes clients tax returns and then is able to run projections on them and do tax planning.
And, and so that we can make recommendations and make adjustments to people's plans based on the results of their previous year's tax return. And I think you're right. I think it will take away some jobs. We, that's obvious. And it may take away a lot of jobs, but I also think more or less than anything else Mostly all businesses are going to be adopting it in a lot of capacities as a tool and people are going to have to get used to using it and understanding how to use these softwares because it is going to be a part of business.
Matthew: And then where I think it's going, and this isn't my prediction, but I was listening to this podcast. And they're saying by next year AI agents is what they're starting to call them now are going to be good enough to where you could essentially use an AI software and create a, an application. So another piece of software.
And anybody could do this without computer background and you'll be able to prompt it like, Oh, I want to create an app to help me lose weight. And then you tell it what you're looking for. And you know, you work through the AI, ask you some questions, it goes through it, it builds you an app. The AI will even be able to test the app and help you, you know, push it live essentially.
Brent: What does all this mean to you when you think about your kids growing up and you start to think about, okay, what, what are good jobs for my kids to do? Or what are good professions with your kids at their age? Is it still way too early?
Matthew: I think it's too early. I just, I think there's, you know, some, Core areas you always want to steer your kids towards and core areas you want to steer your kids away from.
And I think we've seen that throughout time. And that's if you want your kids to, you know, be able to be successful. And I think, you know, accounting, business, finance, anything mathematically related, I think those are very strong subjects to steer your kids to where I think, you know, a lot of the language stuff you know, while it's good and you know, you could get a good education from it.
You know, the AI already writes better than me. I have a college degree. They taught writing all throughout school, but the AI can write more clear and concise answers than I ever could. Because before it was
Brent: like, okay, teach your kids how to code. And if they could specialize in coding, like you could have a lot of jobs.
Totally. That's another form of writing. Yeah. But now like coding is going to go away. Like AI is going to be able to code for people. Yeah.
Matthew: Coding
Brent: is already gone. Yeah. So I don't. That it's it shifts so much.
Matthew: Yeah, so I said you just stick with the pillars business finance accounting like hardcore mathematics Any of that you're gonna be fine.
Brent: Yeah, and if you're an innovative person, I mean you could start up anything I mean, that's the the beauty of this country.
Matthew: Mm
Brent: hmm. And then the trades I think the trades are gonna have a huge comeback One of the milestones that I, I thought was impactful this year is just so much stuff that Elon Musk is doing and he's become now this political figure.
And I think there's this like love, hate relationship that people have with him. Some people just, you know, they didn't like him before and now they like him because political, his politics. Some people don't like him now. I mean, there's just such a shift in everything. But, we, we can now see where, not too long from now, like, we're not gonna be driving.
Over the next decade, like, cars are gonna be driving us probably pretty much everywhere. And we're not going to be driving the car, you know, Thomas driving is taking leaps and bounds and you saw that this year and you also saw that with space X like they're taking and doing more in space than we ever thought was possible and they're doing it faster and so probably over the next decade, they predict that.
There's plans for people to take missions to Mars. That's crazy. That, that is not something that I ever thought we would see in our lifetime.
Matthew: And it's probably not something that I want to do either. But yeah, he, he's incredible. He starts a lot of different businesses. I think, you know, politics aside, like you said, he should be celebrated a little bit more instead of always trying to, to hate against him.
I, I couldn't imagine where we'd be as a nation. If he wasn't here creating the things he's creating. I agree.
Brent: And I think at some level we need to make sure that, you know, he's being taken care of so that it's going to continue to advance. Because he's the one that's been, you know, the forward thinker on so many of these projects.
Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. And it's important to have a, a country and an economy that lets someone like that thrive and foster.
Brent: Yeah. Any other breakthroughs that you thought to share?
Matthew: You know, I think we should give Bitcoin some love. Yeah. Cause I talked about, I talk about crypto a lot and you'd love it. Yeah.
It's fun. I mean, I like, I like things that go up in price. But it
Brent: didn't for a while. It did stop talking about
Matthew: it, but the, but the, I mean, the stock market goes up and down just like Bitcoin. So small sample set, but what we have on Bitcoin is, is it's, it's the greatest financial asset ever. Best risk to return profile of any asset better than the stock market.
And I think the biggest story was the SEC allowing the ETFs this year on Bitcoin. And I think that's slowly changing the crypto industry. It's making it more of a, of an industry that's being financialized. I think that's obviously been huge for the price of Bitcoin. I think it's went from about 20 K this year, 25 K to where it is today, which is 105, 000 as of recording.
Yeah, I imagine it's going a lot higher over this next three to four year cycle in Bitcoin.
Brent: Yeah, it's going to be interesting. It's it's to me, I thought it was interesting that there was so much news about it for so long, you know, let's say 2021, 22, then it completely just was an afterthought of discussion.
And here we are at the end of 2024 and we're talking about it again. I mean, it's, it it is not going away and it will still be here next year. But it is a big conversation and you're starting to have More of those conversations where people were before talking about gold are now talking about crypto,
Matthew: right?
Right. And I think that's one of the, the big bold cases on Bitcoin is some people think it'll catch up to gold and market cap where, you know, gold and Bitcoin have about the same market cap value. And right now it's off by trillions of dollars. I have another breakthrough. What'd
Brent: you got? I don't know if a lot of people know this, but The biotech companies like Moderna and Pfizer announced some breakthroughs in cancer vaccines, and they're the new mRNA therapies.
And I was following this closely as my mom was sick with cancer for many years. That we were kind of hoping and waiting for this MRNA breakthrough to take place. And what that is, is more targeted therapy towards cancer where you're getting treatments that attack those areas instead of just completely ruining everything that's inside of your body.
Yeah. And I think there's a lot of breakthroughs that are happening there. And hopefully this targeted therapy can one day lead to targeted treatments because we know cancer is not going away, at least not now. And hopefully this can go in a capacity where somebody gets something and it targets where the problem is and it gets rid of it instead of, you know, these massive problems that we're having right now.
Matthew: That sounds amazing. I know that MRNA kind of got a bad rap during 21 and 22. But I think we would all agree if it's used to help people fight cancer. I think that's a much better use.
Brent: Yeah. And I think also the advancements of AI, I'm assuming are going to hopefully expedite the process of solutions.
And hopefully, you know, there's, there's this day where. Although we're trying to prevent cancer, hopefully there's a state where we can fix it. One
Matthew: of the AI models is already a better predictor of what's wrong with you than a human doctor. Yeah, I
Brent: could see how that would be possible.
Matthew: And it's a process
Brent: of elimination, right?
And that's what doctors do.
Matthew: Right, and it's just, all it was saying, basically what the study said was that the AI just did a better job of finding the problem and that the doctors have too much bias. But from what they see from what they see, exactly what they know. Yeah,
Brent: that makes sense. Yeah.
Matthew: Cause at the end of the day, we're human,
Brent: right?
Right. All right. Any other stories? No, I thought those were the main ones for this year. I mean, there's a lot there. Yeah. You know, I think hopefully next year is a great year also.
Matthew: I mean, it should be. All right. So I think you know, do you want to talk about wine and cheese or do you want to talk about some gifts?
Brent: What wine and cheese do you want to talk about?
Matthew: So I think next year we're going to be doing a wine and cheese event with our clients, right? So, over at the Cheese Cave, do you want to tell everyone about what that's like?
Brent: Yeah, so look next to us, right down the block, is a place that does, that specializes in wine and cheese.
And they have meats and we're going to be doing some events there with clients. They have a room that that can host about 20 to 22 people or so, and we're going to utilize that room to host small group events with our clients, and we'll do some gatherings there where they'll put on a, an education where she goes into the history of some of the cheeses, she goes into the history of some of the wines, and then she teaches.
The group how to make a cheese board and goes through like how to correctly put together a cheese board, which is something I thought was really interesting. We already did it once with family and friends and I would like to do it again to take even more notes because I think it's really cool to be able to host something like that and be able to do it really well.
And all of our wine that we did at the wine walk was from them. So we're starting to collaborate with them more, which I think is great for the community. And I think it's great for clients cause they get to, We have a lot of clients also that are have a bit large groups of friends that are here and so we want to host them because they've all referred over to us and they have all their friends here and we want to be able to host pretty cool events like that.
Matthew: Yeah, I think it's gonna be really great. So if you're interested in these events, reach out to us. We sent an email out to all of our clients. And if you're a prospective client and you want to, you want to come reach out to us Instagram through email, through our website. And, you know, we'd love to put you on for a wine and cheese class next year.
Brent: Yeah. I think it's a great way to get, you know, just an easy introduction to us, but yeah, send us a message and we'll get you on the list for next year.
Matthew: All right. Instead of doing a recommends, just want to talk a little bit about some gifts you want to talk about gifts for the kids, gifts you want.
Do you even want anything? No, gosh, no.
Brent: But I can, I have some recommends and I have some gifts. Oh, okay. I can just, all I can say about that I know for gifts, like I don't know the hot gifts anymore. I don't do a lot of the Christmas shopping, but what I do know is the things that my son and my daughter are now sort of into.
Yeah,
Matthew: what are
Brent: they into? My son is now reached age cause he's 10, he'll be 11 next year. He's into that age where like, he's into things like, like clothing attire, like jerseys hats, sunglasses, his like his drip, you know, like, yeah, he's starting to go to get stuff, you know, I felt like three years ago he was just wanting to action figures and things to play with, but now he wants stuff he can look cool with.
And so I feel like that thing's kind of, you know, I know that there'll be an evolution to something new in a few years. But it is pretty cool. That's what he's into now. My daughter's into a lot of things that have to do with like to play teacher and she's eight. She's going to be nine like bracelet making, which I know is huge.
I think Taylor Swift kind of started this whole like bracelet making thing, but that's like a huge thing. Is that, am I right?
Matthew: Oh yeah. I mean, my daughter, she likes making bracelets. I mean, she needs help, but she likes it.
Brent: Yeah. So my daughter's into a lot of that, the bracelet stuff. So if you do need gifts for your, your kids.
Your granddaughter, like I think those are great things. And I also think anything that kids can utilize to play with and use their imagination, they don't need video games, you know, let them use their imagination to do stuff that requires them to do family activities or outdoor activities. I know the one thing.
That we do all the time now, or when we have time, we try to have dinner together every night, but obviously like with our sports schedule and our schedule, that's very difficult to do, but we try not to make excuses and do it. But my kids love doing trivia at dinner. Oh, that's cool. They love it. And we do different kinds of trivia questions.
So I always pull up a bunch of trivia questions. And just start going away at and asking them and you just realize the things that your kids are into and how smart they are at different things. And it's, it's pretty fun to do.
Matthew: That's pretty cool. Yeah. Okay. So one thing on video games, though, we were talking about, you know, Musk about five minutes ago.
Did you know he's the number one ranked Diablo player in the world? That's a computer game?
Brent: Is that
Matthew: right? Dude, he's the number one ranked player in the world.
Brent: When does he even have time to play?
Matthew: I don't know. The guy's a machine. Does he even sleep? I don't know, but I also learned that he doesn't own a house.
Brent: Yeah. He just has that one small place in Texas, right?
Matthew: Yeah. He, he said he usually just sleeps at whatever company he's visiting.
Brent: Yeah. It's crazy.
Matthew: It's insane. He, he makes everybody look like they don't have a work ethic. Yeah, I
Brent: know.
Matthew: Okay. So my kids I'll start with the boy. He, he's starting to get into trucks.
So everything's trucks. Construction trucks, monster trucks hot wheels, everything's a truck. All he wants is trucks. It's trucks 24 7 right now in my house.
Brent: Most kids love monster trucks.
Matthew: I didn't when I was a kid, it's weird.
Brent: Yeah, these kids love, my son loved them, kids love monster trucks, dump trucks, all that stuff.
Matthew: I know Josh's son is into it, my nephews are into it, so, you know, I was never into trucks, but. I guess it's the new thing and then my daughter's similar to yours anything she could make believe play with school baby dolls
Brent: That kind of stuff the other gift that my kids really wanted was a dog and I already took care of that Although, you know, I'd love to return the dog First of all, I think I said it.
I really didn't want a dog. I still didn't want a dog I still don't want a dog, but the dogs here to stay And the kids are super happy with it, but it, it chewed up a pillow. Every rug of mine is out of the house and in the trash. And I'm still trying to really house break the dog, but the dog is still here.
My wife loves the dog. The dog loves my wife. My dog loves the kids. But I didn't want a dog. I still don't want a dog.
Matthew: Well, you took one for the team.
Brent: I did. And they're happy, but they wanted that for Christmas, but I don't recommend anybody going out and buying their, somebody else's dog. Yeah, no way, dude.
I got kids.
Matthew: I don't need dogs.
Brent: You're going to have a dog one day.
Matthew: I will have a dog one day, but not anytime soon.
Brent: No, it might be sooner than you think.
Matthew: Yeah. Any other recommends anything you want to talk about?
Brent: I did get a hydro spark probe, a water bottle from Apple. And it's a water bottle. I'm finding that as I get older, I need to drink more water.
And if I don't drink water, I have more impact on my body and I can feel it. And I bought a water bottle that lights up when you're not drinking enough water, so it's constantly reminding you, you need to drink water. And so I've been utilizing that as a way to try to keep myself hydrated because.
I wasn't drinking enough water and I'm, I don't, but I know a lot of people have that problem, right? Like you drink a ton of water all day long. I hear you filling up your water bottle and sucking down your water. You guys even made
Matthew: fun of me at the company Christmas party with my wife there.
Brent: Yes, you do.
You drink a ton of water.
Matthew: I like drinking water.
Brent: Yes, you do.
Matthew: Josh and I have always told you, you don't drink enough water. Correct.
Brent: And I know that cause I see how much water you drink. You drink more water in a day than I drink probably in a week.
Matthew: Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're drinking water.
Brent: It's good for you.
Any pro tips on how you can drink more water? Just drink
Matthew: it.
Brent: I don't know, man. I heard the other really popular gift this year. For, if people want, need a white elephant gift or, or a gift to give somebody is AirTags. Oh, I don't know why that's a big thing right now. Like AirTags have been around for a while.
AirTags are, they're Apple AirTags. You can put the little AirTag on like your suitcase or your keys, or it tracks and finds where your stuff is. So anything that you need on a regular basis, like a. Your purse or backpack or whatever. You always know where it's at. If you have an air tag in it. I'm not sure why that's making a comeback.
They've been around a while, but it seems like that's one of the hot gifts.
Matthew: Yeah, probably just creative uses for them. So like we put them on our strollers you can throw them in a backpack. Especially like when you're traveling and going to, or going to like to a theme park or, you know, an event and it's, there's that risk of risk of loss or risk of someone accidentally taking your stuff.
You can find it using the air tag, which is cool. And then we put them on our kids. You know, if you're at Disney the zoo, any of those places, you could Put them in your kid's shoes or there's little like necklaces or bands you could get for them and makes you feel a little bit better as a parent.
Yeah. And then if they ever wander off you know, you could see how close they are.
Brent: Yeah. Disneyland people used to put leashes on their kids. Yeah. You just put a tag on, you just put a tag on them. So I mean, things. Life hits you fast. One other update that if it's okay, I want to update people on. So I told the story several pods ago about my son this summer was utilizing his roadblocks and purchasing things when, you know, I, I don't fully blame him.
It's probably, I gave him too much Easy access to roadblocks and how to use it. And I don't think he directly knew the impact of it, but he learned very quickly the impact and he's been paying it off. So the bill, I think he ran up was like 740 or 780. He's he, his debt, he's been working off with chores.
So he gets a dollar figure for each chore that he does, and he has to track it weekly and he keeps a spreadsheet. And so it's been a really good learning lesson for him, but I think his debt is now under 200. So since this happened in late July, he has not had a single video game, iPad, anything since July.
And so he's two thirds of the way there. He's got about another third, but he's going to go into the holiday season without any electronics still, which is, I think it's great. I, I, I wish I could just throw all of that stuff in the trash because. I see him reading books all day long. He finds better ways to use his time.
I feel like he's also not moody. And I think, you know, video games aren't really that beneficial in very many capacities.
Matthew: Hey man, like I said, Elon Musk, number one, we're ranked job of the player in the world.
Brent: Yeah. So apparently I'm wrong.
Matthew: Dead wonders for him, right?
Brent: Yeah.
Matthew: Well, I don't,
Brent: I'm not sure that that's what did it.
Matthew: Well, Hey, here's the thing. I, you know, I think you've taught your kid your lesson. Why don't you gift him the 200 to let him pay off his debt so he could play some, his iPad over Christmas.
Brent: You know, that's some of that like soft parenting stuff, you know, like your, your kids need to fully recognize the consequences of what they did.
And I think lessons are meant for. Not to be, you know, just given away freely, but he's working his way back and he's doing a really good job at it. And I'm super proud that, you know, he's been able to do this and he's never once been like, Oh, can I have my video games for just a day? He's never once asked for it.
So the only thing he asked for is, you know, some more books and that's cool. And that's what we keep just feeding him with. And he gets a dollar figure for every time he reads a book. So,
Matthew: well, yeah, I mean, he's smart. So then he knows every book he reads, he's Taking money off his balance. Correct. So
Brent: he's getting smarter along the way.
There you go.
Matthew: That's what way to teach him.
Brent: Yep. All right. So we know it's the holiday season and, you know, we just want to wish everybody a blessed holiday and a happy new year and, you know, hopefully that everybody has some quality time to either spend with friends and family. And we're just you 2025 would bring.
Every time we enter a new year, we always get. An influx of new clients as people want to kick the next year started off, right? And if you're somebody that needs help planning or your client of ours that needs to do anything or in a transition for next year please reach out to us, give us a call.
We're always here to help in those transitions. The reason why we do the retirement plan playbook is so that people can listen on what the hot topics are, what some of the financial things that you can do to implement, but we do love having this pod going. And we just want to wish everybody a happy holidays.
Matthew: Yeah.
Brent: Thank you.
Thank you for tuning into the retirement plan playbook. If you enjoyed today's episode and want to stay updated, please click the subscribe button for notifications on new episodes. For personalized financial guidance, or to connect with our team, you're welcome to call us at 909 296 7977, or visit www.evermont.com for a complimentary consultation. Your journey towards a successful retirement plan continues, and we are here to help every step of the way. Until next time, keep building your future. The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest, and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Evermont Wealth.
The content has been made available for information and educational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment planning.