EP 102: Retirement Planning 101: The Basics You Need to Know
The X's and O's
The “Retirement Plan Playbook+ podcast, hosted by Brent Pasqua, Matthew Theal, and Joshua Winterswyk of Evermont Wealth, provides a deep dive into investment strategies, retirement planning, and current events to help listeners build a robust retirement playbook.
In this episode, they focus on the basics of retirement planning, including 401k contributions, the impact of inflation, and understanding Social Security benefits. They also discuss the significance of adjusting investment strategies over time and the importance of consulting with a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional for a customized retirement plan.
Additionally, they touch on Netflix securing NFL rights, strategies for saving money in a high inflation environment, and share their personal recommendations on Evermont Wealth hats and merchandising.
02:06 The Roast of Tom Brady: A Hilarious Recap
05:12 Navigating Inflation and Money-Saving Tips
12:22 Netflix's Strategic Moves in Sports Broadcasting
16:48 Netflix's Content Strategy vs. Competitors
17:08 Diving Into Retirement Planning: The Basics
17:20 Maximizing Your 401k: Strategies and Tips
24:08 Investment Strategies: Stocks, Bonds, and Beyond
28:23 Understanding Social Security Benefits
34:05 Evermont Wealth's Merchandise Talk
Connect With Evermont Wealth:
Transcript
Intro: 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.
Intro: 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: Welcome in the retirement plan playbook. I'm your host, Brent Pasqua, founder of Evermont wealth financial advisor. And I'm here with Matthew Theal and Joshua Winterswyk, both certified financial planners. And we're here today to talk about some of the retirement planning one on ones. And I guess Matt, what does retirement planning one on one mean?
Matthew: I think this is like a kind of intro course. Some of the frequently asked questions we get. And just some of the basics you need to actually retire. Like a lot of people, I think, have no idea about what retirement looks like, what some of the rules are, for instance, what age or social security starts at what age your Medicare starts at.
Matthew: When can you pull from your retirement accounts? Cause sometimes we hear a lot of unrealistic retirement ages from clients where it's like, wow, you have to save a lot for retirement to actually make sense today shows just about some of those basics you need to know before you start to think about retirement.
Joshua: This has been a hot topic for me, the retire early and not having enough. If you're thinking about retiring early,
Matthew: a lot of people are asking about it.
Brent: I think a lot of people want to know even the one on ones cause they don't even know how to sometimes either a get started with retirement planning or like how to start thinking about that transition from working to retirement.
Matthew: Yeah, I agree.
Brent: I have a question though. Did you watch that roast of Tom Brady on Netflix?
Matthew: Now actually Josh told me about this. I've watched probably about half of it so far, but it's long It's three hours. You gotta commit. Did you watch
Brent: it?
Joshua: Josh? I did
Brent: and what
Joshua: did you think it took me two nights? I didn't watch it all in one sitting it was pretty bad Like they didn't hold back at all, but
Matthew: bad, like good.
Matthew: Right? Like you're saying bad,
Joshua: like they really went after Tom. Well, yeah, I mean, they really went after him and there was a lot of comedians and talent that were at that roast. Seem like Netflix played, you know, put some good money into the production of that, by the way, as well. I know we're going to talk about Netflix in just a second, but.
Joshua: It was funny. There was a lot of funny people and there was a lot of funny jokes. It had me laughing. And it seemed like it was like the hottest topic on social media for, you know, like a week or two as well. So, you know, it was pretty good. A lot of backlash though, from it too. From who? His wife, even him.
Joshua: Well,
Matthew: of course she got crushed.
Joshua: Just a lot of, you know. The normal follow up backlash from an event like that, where they're kind of taking personal shots, but I thought it was funny. Have you seen any of the clips?
Brent: I have, I've saw a couple of the clips and like some of like the headline jokes that a few of the people made, but I haven't watched any of it yet.
Brent: I it's hard for me to watch those types of shows where like people are just being like so ruthless, but you know, I, I do want to see what everybody's talking about. Cause it's been a major conversation. It was ruthless. Do you like comedy? I do. I like comedy that will make me laugh, but I'm not like I'm going to go watch standup comedy.
Brent: I don't mind jokes that are, you know funny, or that can be like a little over the top. I just, I don't, I don't find it that funny when people are so harsh, taking low blows at people.
Joshua: I think that for a roast, like it's called a roast, like you're signing up for this, like, and you just got to be okay with, with whatever they throw at you, because I mean, you can say no, he didn't have to do that.
Matthew: Yeah, in the first 20 minutes I was like, why did Tom
Joshua: Brady sign up for this? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't want to get up there and do that Especially with all of the events that are going on in his life like recently like his divorce Why would he do that though? Does anybody know that money?
Matthew: Yeah, they probably pay him a lot of money But also I mean the dude likes the limelight man. He likes the spotlight.
Joshua: Yeah, he does and then now he's going on to NFL Sundays, right? He's like the lead lead guy. I think he got 300 million dollar contract, right? Yeah So he's like staying in the spotlight now
Brent: on a roast.
Brent: Oh, can you warn people like hey, here's the three areas? I don't want you to go to Through or is it like, that's not what a roast is.
Joshua: I don't know if you, I don't mean, I don't know if you can or you can't, but it was funny. Cause Jeff Ross was making a joke about Robert Kraft and Tom Brady went up there and like, was like, don't, don't do that.
Joshua: And it was like kind of like a little bit of an awkward moment on the roast. He
Matthew: definitely didn't stand up for his ex wife like that. But I thought Kevin Hart was a really good host. It was funny. I
Joshua: liked it.
Matthew: Yeah. Great, great host. Should we get into the hot take headlines?
Brent: Yeah, let's get into it. So let's talk a little bit about inflation.
Brent: So the monthly increased consumer prices rose by 0. 3 percent in April, 2024, and the annual inflation rate increased by 3. 4 percent over the past year. Core CPI, excluding food and energy, the core CPI rose by 0. 3 percent in April also. And 3. 6 percent over the past year. We saw energy prices increased by 1.
Brent: 1 percent for the month. And that contributed significantly to the overall rise in, in numbers. What are your thoughts kind of like on how these numbers play out and what does this look like
Matthew: towards fall now? Inflation keeps rising. We've been talking about it for a while. I basically inflation has been on the rise since 2021.
Matthew: Prices are up above 20, 20 percent cumulatively. You know, it's, it's not good. That said, I have some money saving tips for people because I think we all know inflation is coming and it's been going on right. Prices have been rising now since 2021. Here's my money saving tips. You ready for this?
Matthew: Josh,
Joshua: I'm ready.
Matthew: All right. Number one, order grocery delivery. You'll save money from going to the supermarket. Why is that? Because you're not throwing random stuff you don't need in your cart.
Joshua: This is Brent's tip.
Matthew: Oh, is it? I mean, it's it's my Costco strategy.
Joshua: That's his that's been his tip. You stole his tip
Matthew: Okay.
Matthew: Well, I didn't pay attention to Brent to know he was doing that. But yeah, I've been doing it. It works
Joshua: Yeah, but isn't grocery delivery very expensive Not
Matthew: if you're an Amazon member.
Joshua: So hopefully now you're talking about specifically you have to be in the area to get whole foods delivered.
Matthew: Yeah, but there's other grocery stores on there.
Matthew: I think they have like a fresh Amazon basics and you could get other grocery delivery, but
Brent: why does it have to be daily? Can't you just do a store pickup? Are you just saying switch your strategy? Don't go inside the store and just figure out another way to get your groceries.
Matthew: Well, where I live deliveries, like, you know, a thing like, I don't think I'd drive to the store to pick up the groceries.
Matthew: I might as well just walk in the store.
Joshua: I'll piggyback that. Save money on grocery delivery on any sort of fee. Yeah, so just stick to your
Matthew: list That's what you do And then like you're my bill has been about a hundred to one hundred fifty dollars cheaper By doing delivery over the past two months than it has been previously
Joshua: Do you miss any other random food that you used to put in your cart?
Matthew: Oh, yeah Well, at least I'm getting the basics. Are you throwing things out? Not as much
Joshua: That was Brent's tip for Costco along. He told me that tip a long time ago. That's a good, he said it's cheaper to get Costco instacarted, right? Yep. Then to go, because you're going to buy a bunch of random stuff. I don't,
Brent: I don't want to use Instacart ever because of the amount of cost and fees and that go into it.
Brent: But that is the one exception I'll make. I will not step foot into a Costco unless I absolutely, absolutely have to. And that hasn't happened in like five years. I'll just Instacart it. I'll have it delivered. I only get what I need and I move on the same
Joshua: day.
Matthew: No line. So, so speaking of Instacart, that's my second money saving strategy.
Matthew: I have an addiction and it is a Postmates addiction.
Joshua: Oh, we know we just never talk about it.
Matthew: I love Postmates foods. But it's gotten to the point where it's just way too expensive. I feel like the prices are higher on the app than if you just go to the restaurant yourself.
Joshua: So Postmates for listeners that don't use Postmates is like Uber Eats or DoorDash.
Joshua: It's a, you know, restaurant delivery service.
Matthew: Yeah. With a big footprint in the kind of near LA region. And you could spend a lot of money on there. And let me tell you, I cut it out and save the money. So my point is on this whole inflation, everybody listening to this podcast knows inflation is bad. Prices keep going up.
Matthew: They've been going up now since 2021, but there are ways when you look at your monthly budget. To cut things out and save money, but still enjoy some of the, some of your lifestyle.
Joshua: It's a good tip.
Brent: Do you get food delivery, Josh?
Joshua: Not really. Not, I mean, sometimes just, it has to be like a really like inconvenient time that I need food to get delivered.
Joshua: Cause I'm doing three other things, let's say at home or I'm hosting, or, you know, we have people like, it's very specific. It has to
Brent: be worth it. It's the perfect storm.
Joshua: Yeah. It's, but it's not like a Friday night because I don't want to go. Pick it up or we're not going to go out that I'm just getting it just because for my wife and my kids.
Joshua: I feel the same way. It's just too expensive. It does. When you look on there too. And I'm like, you know, this normally costs 40 and to get it delivered, it's 80. Like I can just can't justify it. I didn't care about that. We know we just didn't talk about it. Like we just, you know, just. You're addicted and we just didn't want to like address the issue, but you know, on Monday you'd come in and tell us that you postmates shoot Isakos on Friday night, like two weekends in a row.
Matthew: To be fair, like I have some really good restaurant options. You do see
Joshua: that's a little bit, probably a little, it's a little
Brent: bit different. And some of them are harder to probably to get to than other cities. Like, right. Cause if you, if you want something in downtown Pasadena, You've got to go park, which is a pain and like, Oh, that's just a headache.
Brent: So you might as well just get delivered.
Matthew: No, even that Postman's is so good where I live. I could get LA restaurants. I could get downtown LA. I can get silver Lake. Exactly. That's how I got chewy tacos. All right. Enough about me. Okay.
Brent: So I have a question about inflation though. So are they going to have to raise rates in fall?
Matthew: No, they're going to cut rates still, even with these, these numbers. That's what they say. Now, there's the, now they're saying they're going to cut rates. I don't know. I can't keep up. Right.
Joshua: But one of the biggest parts of this inflation print though was auto insurance. So, you know, some of these other prices like food remained unchanged.
Joshua: But one thing that was promoting this last number was, you know, we're seeing now a 20 percent increase in auto insurance. Have you guys experienced that yourself?
Matthew: Not yet, but I've heard a lot about from clients.
Joshua: So that's a little bit of a one off even from the food that we're kind of seeing our gas prices that we've been seeing in the past or rent, but it's a something new that's popping up to help this inflation number stay where it's at.
Joshua: It's interesting.
Matthew: Then I saw it say that target was cutting prices on some popular goods. Yeah. To like
Joshua: kind of entice buyers, help them.
Matthew: I mean, people are sick of it. I'm sick of it. You know, if I'm sick of it, everybody's sick of it.
Brent: Yeah. Higher prices.
Matthew: Yeah,
Brent: yeah, but for the most part, I mean you might get a little bit of correction, but you're not gonna get a ton
Joshua: It's not going backwards completely never does.
Brent: I mean I drove past Carl's jr. The other day It said two hamburgers for 10 I was like what the heck is two hamburgers for 10 mean
Joshua: used to be like remember McDonald's had like 59 cent cheeseburgers or hamburgers and we're growing up.
Brent: Yeah, you could thank Gavin Newsom for that I thought like two hamburgers used to be like 5.
Brent: Now it's 10 for two. And like, they're acting like that's a deal. Fast food hamburger, even in and out in and
Joshua: out. It's expensive now. Yeah. There's the big Mac meals, 18 at McDonald's. Are you buying a big Mac meal for 18 bucks?
Brent: No, I won't even step foot in the place regardless. I mean, it doesn't make Matt's Postmates delivery.
Brent: It seemed like that bad of an option.
Joshua: No, actually, no, you're saving money.
Brent: All right, let's get into the other headlines. So Netflix gets NFL rights. It has secured a third season deal, a three season deal with the NFL starting in 2024 and the deal includes airing two NFL games on Christmas day. What is, I guess, Netflix doing here getting into the NFL market?
Brent: I know this is probably massive for NFL. Massive for Netflix. Who was at Peacock last year? Got that one game. What was that? A playoff game? What's that Friday? Yes. Or it was a playoff game. Peacock got it. They got all those people to subscribe. Now Netflix lands this deal and it feels brilliant, obviously, but what does this do for Netflix?
Brent: And how does this look?
Matthew: I think Netflix is crushing it right now. So their old strategy was always, Hey, we're never going to do live sports. And the founder and CEO left the company a few years ago. And since then they've slowly been adding sports with the golf event. What'd they call that?
Joshua: Oh, like a, it was like a match event.
Joshua: Yeah. A match event with that one.
Matthew: Yeah. And then they have the big boxing match coming up here in a few months.
Joshua: Tyson,
Matthew: the Tyson Paul fight. That's going to be pretty sweet. And then now they're at an NFL for Christmas day, which is genius because, you know, people are going to be sitting around, they're going to want to fire up the game.
Matthew: We're going to watch the game. And then after that, boom, you're going to be in the Netflix app and you'll watch whatever the big holiday movie is.
Brent: I mean, as sports and TV is all seems to be going more and more every year towards streaming.
Joshua: Yeah. What's what's hard about this though. What I think of it is that it's so spread out and you have to pay individually for all of these services.
Joshua: And we're talking about saving money, but if you'd already don't have Netflix and you want to watch that game, you're now forced to sign up for Netflix.
Matthew: I'll save everybody some money here. There's only two services that matter. Netflix, they have the best content right now and they're licensing it. They're licensing in other people's content
Joshua: that anyone, but you movie, you liked it.
Joshua: Best content
Matthew: is good. I watched it. Okay. Okay. I mean They're doing a good job. Okay, it's entertaining. Okay, dude, your wife is watching everything on there all those reality TV shows Bridgerton like, you know, they're kind of the zeitgeist right now Okay,
Joshua: now I like
Matthew: that and now they're adding sports for the men for the big football fans are and the biggest sport Okay.
Matthew: So you need your Netflix,
Joshua: but it's for households. I mean the NFL, I mean, you're talking about NFL games being some of the most watched events throughout the year. And that was something they didn't have that they're adding. It can only help in my opinion.
Matthew: I mean, yeah, I agree. It's great. And then if you have kids, you need Disney.
Matthew: If you don't have kids, you have no business having the Disney plus. So now we're at two services and if you like to watch live TV, you need YouTube TV outside of that. You don't need any of the other services. They're all garbage.
Brent: And Netflix, like two years ago, we were sitting here talking about how much trouble Netflix was in, or maybe it was three years ago, but they were in big trouble a couple of years ago.
Matthew: Yeah, they were.
Brent: And they won, but they still, they, they were still at that time and everybody was dogging them. They were still the premier content. They still had a leg up on everybody else in streaming and they did win. They kept, you know, stuck with the truth and they kept working it.
Matthew: Yeah. But a lot of people wish they could go back to 2022 and buy that stock at 200 when it was crashing.
Matthew: Yes.
Joshua: And this NFL deal helped their stock price too. It did. Yeah. It's been doing very well this year. I hope they can help save golf. They're going to have full swing on there. Do you
Matthew: think Netflix just keeps getting better? I would imagine. Yes. Because it's kind of like a domino effect, right? The more subscribers they get, the more stuff they could buy, the more money they could spend, the more like let the less likely it is that households cut canceled on a month a month.
Matthew: So let me give you an example, like HBO, right? HBO used to be like the gold standard in the nineties. Everyone used to have HBO, right? Now they change their name to max. They still have some good content, but when they don't have any good shows, it's not worth paying for it. All right. So like, if they have a game of thrones or the hot show, you pay for it for three months, watch that show, then cancel it.
Joshua: I think that that's a Netflix recipe for putting out content and especially in the beginning, cause it wasn't as good as it is now, but they just continuously rolled out content and content to where you always had something new to watch. Like you're saying with the HBO app, it's like, okay, yeah. When my show's done, there's nothing else to watch on there.
Matthew: Right.
Joshua: Exactly. There's not even any like great new content on there as where Netflix is. Every time you log in, you're seeing something new trending.
Matthew: There's so many shows. I can't watch them all.
Brent: They've done a really good job with their business.
Joshua: Now they're going to have NFL.
Brent: I'm glad I didn't sell my stock.
Brent: I'll tell you that. Should we get into the corner? All right. Let's get into retirement planning corner. So let's talk a little bit about retirement planning. One on one. I think it's important for everybody to have some of the, even the basics down about retirement planning and what some of the things that they could do a discussion point.
Brent: Number one that we're going to go through is saving for retirement with a 401k. And what a 401k plan is, is it's an employer based plan where if you're an eligible employee with a company that has a 401k plan you are allowed to make contributions or add money into the plan with pre tax dollars. If it's in the traditional portion of it.
Brent: Into the 401k and that allows your money to grow on a pre tax basis. And it allows your money to compound and grow over time so that you have a nest egg of money when you go to retire. And remember, when you go to retire, your work income stops, you are potentially going to kick on your social security depending on what age you are, and you now have to live off of your potentially your social security, maybe some people have a pension, many won't, and you have to live off of your nest egg, the money that you saved to supplement your cost of living for the rest of your life.
Brent: And so tell us a little bit more about a 401k plan, what people should be thinking about within their 401k plan and what some of the options are.
Matthew: Yeah. So I think the first thing that comes to mind is, you know, you're putting in that pre tax money. There's a limit on how much you could put in and it's actually a pretty large dollar amount for it's 23, 000 for 2024 which is a big chunk of change under 50.
Matthew: Right. If you're under 50, correct. And then with the ketchup, it adds 5, 000, right? So then I think it's six by six. Okay. So then that gets us to 29. That's a big chunk of change you could put in your 401k What I see most people do is when they're offered a 401k plan the first thing they they start with is I'm just gonna put in enough to get the employer match because I heard on Instagram that it's free money and That's the bare minimum.
Matthew: I'm gonna do I'm gonna set up my 401k put away get the free match Maybe I'm getting 7 percent of my total salary put in the 401k that's great. I'm going to sit it and forget it and hope I can retire, which unfortunately that's not enough. You need to be saving at minimum 10% most likely 20 percent of your annual income inside of a retirement plan.
Matthew: If you want to have a successful retirement, in my opinion Josh, do you have an opinion on that?
Joshua: Of course. I knew you did. Yeah. You know what? There's two parts of this. You know, If you're not, if you're not contributing, you need to be contributing. That's the first thing with, you know, we're retirement planning one on one, you need to be contributing to your 401k.
Joshua: And the very bare minimum would be what your employer matches. But I think that setting a goal, however, how quickly you can get there may vary based off of affordability. But I think that's a good start of that. It should be at least 10 percent if you're wanting to build a really healthy 401k nest egg for your future.
Joshua: So I think that I agree with that, but if you're not, or, you know, you need to build up to that, that's fine, but please do not not participate in your 401k plan.
Matthew: What are your favorite strategies? Increasing a contribution, right? Cause it is pretty unrealistic for me to come out and say like, Hey, someone in their twenties, twenties needs to be saving 20 percent of their income.
Matthew: They might have debt that they're still paying off from college. Like what are those best strategies for them to increase that over time?
Joshua: Yeah, it's really easy. Cause you see the Instagram videos too, where it's like, Oh, you need to be maxing out your 401k. Well, that's easier said than done. Right. I think though for me, one, You paid off a debt.
Joshua: So instead of spending that, you know, monthly allowance when you do pay off a debt, like a credit card, a personal loan, student loan, increase your 401k. I think another good time that you can increase is anytime you get a salary raise or you get a raise right at your employer. So, you know, I had my review with my employer.
Joshua: Now I'm going to be making 5 percent more than I did the previous year or the previous six months, then increase that 401k contribution. Even if it's by a percent, what I see a lot of these 401k companies too, is they have an option for you to annually increase the 401k contributions automatically. So like June 1st or January 1st every year it's going to increase by 1%.
Joshua: That's a really good practice too because you'll just not even going to notice it increasing.
Matthew: Yeah, I agree. And then the next angle you could come at this from is like your compound interest, right? So that's why you want to start early. So your gains to start compounding my favorite way to invest in 401k is just use the target date option.
Matthew: So there's these mutual funds that most 401ks have, they're called target date retirement funds. When you're just getting started thinking about retirement, they are perfect. Pick the age that corresponds to the year you think you're going to retire.
Matthew: The investment fund will take care of itself. Meaning it'll manage your stocks and bonds for you. And it'll set you up a, Good enough portfolio so that your money will grow and compound while not getting too complex.
Matthew: It's perfect.
Brent: Yeah. I think if you want to set it and forget about it, then I think target date funds are great. And a lot of the 401k plans that we see do not have really good investment options In them, so you're picking from sometimes like the greater of the evils or you're just trying to find like the best option If you want to keep it simple and just know what you're getting use a target date fund.
Brent: I mean it makes the most sense but I do I think I want to take also a step back and one thing with 401k plans I think is confusing to some people why you should use a 401k first before like your ira or contributing to a roth It's because of the amount of money that you could put into a 401k. The amount that you could put into a 401k right now is 23, 000 if you're under 50, and then you have a 7, 500 catch up if you're over 50.
Brent: So you can put up to 30, 500 into your 401k in any given year. That comes off your income. That saves you money in taxes. If you're trying to put into an IRA or your Roth, you can only put in if you qualify because you're, if you go over, make too much money than you can, but you can put if you're under 57, 000.
Brent: Into your ira or roth if you're over 50, you could put 8 000. It's a big difference That's a tremendous difference now in ira or roth Depending on where you open it. You're not subject to those limited investment options You could buy apple stock or netflix stock like we were talking about or you can buy an smp 500 fund You're open to the market but in a 401k you're going to get a list of 20 different options and that's it But you can definitely put a lot more in And a lot of times the companies will match you money.
Matthew: So my opinion on just the IRA 401k from going, what you're saying, Brent, and what you're saying, Josh, about the savings rate and you know, how it needs to be about 10%, if you're making over 70, 000 of income per year, and you're just maxing out an IRA or Roth IRA. You might struggle in retirement. You need that 401k option to get that bigger added savings benefit.
Matthew: Cause you know, you're not even really at 10 percent of your income at that point.
Brent: All right, let's get into the second one on one tip that we have. And I think what's important about when we start to think about some of these areas that can really line up your retirement, one mistake I've seen happen time and time again with people is they've made contributions to their 401ks or their IRAs or their Roth, or whatever investments that they have.
Brent: And they left that money into a bank IRA, a CD, a savings account, sitting in some kind of money market account, or sitting in a fund that they bought a long time ago and never went back and checked. And it could be like a bond fund. And they don't have an investment strategy and regardless of it's 4 million, that all can equate to a lot more money in the future.
Brent: And setting it and forgetting about it on a poor investment strategy seems like a big challenge.
Matthew: Yeah. So what you're saying is they're too conservative, right? So when we're looking at investing, there's really two things you can invest in their stocks and bonds. Stocks are going to be the aggressive portion of your portfolio.
Matthew: That's, what's going to make you money. And the bonds are going to be the conservative portion. That's, what's going to protect your money. I see that mistake all the time to Brent. They're a little bit too conservative or what people do is something like 2008 happens or 2022 happens when the market's crashing, they freak out.
Matthew: They look at their 401k, they pull it out of the stock market and they put it in the stable value fund or the money market fund and they just leave it there for 10 years and keep contributing. And then they, when they go to retire, they have three, 400, 000 instead of having, you know, 2 million cause it's not, hasn't been invested for 15 years.
Matthew: And
Brent: I see a lot of people that are in their forties or fifties that they have like this side old 401k money that was in a 401k and they moved it to an IRA. And it's been sitting in a CD or a bank or an account that they don't really understand. And it's literally been sitting there, do nothing for five, six, seven, 10 years.
Brent: When that could be making and doubling and tripling over a long period of time and turn into a lot of money, but because they just don't take the time to understand or know what to do with it, it's just not doing anything. It has no investment strategy around it.
Joshua: When we're meeting with people for the first time, I feel like we do get that comment a lot where I'm reaching out to you because my account hasn't grown for five, six, seven, eight years.
Joshua: And just think though, you can, you don't have to wait seven or eight years to review the portfolio. To actually see what type of growth you're receiving. So if you're actually sitting down and reviewing your statements, not even knowing nothing about stocks and bonds, but you're sitting down and you're saying, man, it's been two years and this thing hasn't grown, right?
Joshua: Or it's been six months and it hasn't moved. It's probably like a good cue to get it reviewed, right? Or even vice versa, it goes up and down so much. Just looking at the value going up and down. It's very volatile. Like that's going to tell you something just logically. So I think it's a good thing you started with review your investments.
Joshua: Like if you're just reviewing your statements, it'll tell you a lot about the way you're investing, even without not understanding the stock to bond mix and target date funds and everything else that goes into there.
Brent: I think there's just so much terminology and there's so many options with people and it's just like almost decision fatigue.
Brent: People just don't want to make a wrong decision. They don't even know where to turn. But I mean, I think that's a great opportunity. There's a lot of advisors out there that are willing to help people and do a little Google search or do some research, find a feeling advisor, reach out to us, whatever it is.
Brent: But even just get some directional advice, spend time on it because it can be, it can be very helpful when you start looking at your own investments and making sure that everything is allocated correctly or 401k is matching up with your other investment accounts and everything is cohesive as you're starting to think about, you know, your future because everybody at some point.
Brent: Most people, 99 percent of people want to stop working at some point in their life. They're not, they don't want to die at work.
Joshua: And even if you want to work forever, or you do want to, you know, to have that sense of security of being financially free, right? Cause that's what your assets are going to allow you to do.
Joshua: So having that question answered, even if it does mean you'd never want to, you know, for the people who say I'm going to die working, well, that's great. But wouldn't it still feel good to answer the question? Are you financially free or not? Yes.
Matthew: Yeah. Great points guys. Next topic.
Brent: Yeah. Let's get to the next topic.
Brent: So one of the things that Matt, I think you and I have been hearing a lot of, and Josh, I'm sure you're hearing it also is. A lot of people are, and I don't know why, maybe it's the new generation of people starting to transition to retirement. It feel like they understand social security less.
Matthew: I, I agree with you.
Matthew: I do think it could just be like you said, generational gap or, you know, this generation has been told like they're not really getting social security. So that maybe they're paying attention to it, but I mean, you do get social security, you could collect it at any time between the age of 62 and 70.
Matthew: And this is essentially a paycheck that you get for paying social security taxes. And, you know, it's your right to, as an American, as long as you paid into the system,
Joshua: I have a theory, the statements, we used to all get the statements, get mailed to you, you'd have a copy, you might have read it. I haven't seen one person bring in their actual statement, even over 60 into a meeting.
Joshua: You have to log in and create account to get that social security statement. And how many people under 50 actually have ever even logged into social security to understand what their benefits are going to be?
Brent: Yeah. They, they changed. The way that the system worked and you're right. People don't have that statement sent to them every year.
Brent: Like it was, you know, a decade ago.
Joshua: Yeah. Cause even when I was like, I mean, looking back 25 years old before they phased all of that out, was it green? Yes. Yeah. And I like, I got my statement. I was only, you know, I'd been working for, you know, seven, eight years. And I had my statement and I actually read it.
Matthew: So Brent tell us about how you can collect social security, right? So I mentioned any age between 62 and six and 70. What's this for retirement age? How's this all work? So,
Brent: You can begin collecting your benefits based on your earning history. Which is a calculation based on how much money you've made throughout your career.
Brent: And you can collect that at your full retirement age. If you want a hundred percent of your monthly benefit, like what you're entitled to, you can collect it at your full retirement age. And for a lot of people listening, like most likely the whole full retirement age of 66 and 68 and some months, that's kind of phasing out.
Brent: Like those people are reaching those points right now. The full retirement age right now for probably a lot of people that are going to be collecting social security in the next 10 years is really 67. Yeah. I haven't seen a 66 in a long time. I think it's all 67. Yeah, absolutely. And that means that that's when you can really start to collect the majority, like you're a hundred percent of your monthly benefit.
Brent: But I think one thing that's interesting about social security of the last few years is because inflation has been really high. We're now seeing social security benefits a lot higher than what we saw. For the last 20 years, you're seeing people that are well, well, over 3, 000 a month for their social security.
Brent: But now you're a year later, you can't collect at 65 or 66. You're I mean, you can, but you're going to get a lesser benefit. But now it's at 67
Joshua: and that's true for like couples, you know, when you look at like the total combined social security between two high earners that are both going to get, you know, close to 4, 000 a month and your benefits now are exceeding, you know, over 60, 70, 000 of social security benefits potentially going forward.
Joshua: Like it's a lot of money.
Matthew: Yeah. Pay off your mortgage. You pay off your mortgage and you know, you're a high earner. You get a nice little security check now. Yeah.
Brent: You can have a nice base of fixed income, but you know, like you said, Matt, Is it really that much better of a lifestyle or is it just because cost of living is so much?
Joshua: That's buff.
Brent: No, you can't. You don't do the Uber
Matthew: Eats.
Brent: You
Matthew: don't do the Postmates. You might be in play here.
Brent: But I think the key to this is having a better understanding of what you're going to potentially get from Social Security, because that's your baseline fixed income in retirement. And then knowing when you potentially are going to want to start collecting it.
Brent: Because if you know, let's just say, Josh, like you said, as an example, you're going to get 4, 000 a month. And you're going to need 10, 000 a month. You know, you have a 6, 000 gap. Like you got to save enough money to close that gap. But the latest you could really delay social security
Matthew: to age
Brent: 70.
Matthew: There's no benefit to delay past 70.
Matthew: Cause you don't get the increase anymore. I mean, technically you could not take it. Right. Brent, when you and I met a client at a workshop, probably five to eight years ago, who was in his mid seventies and hadn't collected social security yet. And he was, You know, asking if, if there's any benefit or like, no, just, you know, go collect it's free money or you're not getting, it
Joshua: wasn't free.
Joshua: They paid for it.
Matthew: Well, I guess. Yeah. And there's no back pay. So, I mean, the government is not going to give him his checks back. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, he missed out on a lot of checks
Joshua: and what we do for all clients that we work with and people that even just call in and have requests for information and have a discussion.
Joshua: We have software that we use, utilize, that's a separate software that will analyze social security and all the different times that you collect. And what we do is basically take a person's date of birth, their full retirement age amount, and we'll calculate it through a software that will give you all the different options of when you can collect social security, all the different amounts.
Joshua: It's very extensive. It's very detailed and it really gives you kind of a pinpoint time where really it makes sense for you potentially to collect life your social security, just based on your life expectancy.
Matthew: Yeah. And if people are interested in that, they could call the office, talk to Paulina and set a consultation.
Brent: Yeah. Or they can DMS on social media. We'll set up an appointment, set up a phone call and we can run reports for you.
Matthew: Awesome. Perfect. Josh, anything left? No,
Brent: it's good. Good basics.
Brent: I will say though, that I do encourage listeners to consult with a certified financial plan to create that customized plan to start to, you know, because there are so many rules and there's so many things that you can do to help And everybody's plan should be so cohesive within its own plan that you should be strategically planning out your, your financial plan, your retirement plan.
Brent: Cause let me tell you, you will be in a much better position if you do that. All right, Josh, what do you have for us for recommends?
Joshua: I'm going to recommend the hat that I wore all weekend. Actually it's one, I need to haircut, but two also really nice hat. Brent got some Evermont wealth hats made. Do you get one of these Matt?
Joshua: I have every color with rocking it this weekend. Loved it. Got some looks, got some compliments, got a lot of people interested in wanting one of these hats. I think we have, do we have a picture of the hats on Instagram page yet? Yes. Okay, great, great, great. Well, yeah, I love them. I don't know if you guys have been rocking them, but I walked mine all weekend and loved it.
Matthew: Yeah. We gave some away what, two episodes ago. And then we give someone with the golf tournament.
Brent: Yeah.
Matthew: We got a box sent across from us. So we'll be giving away great hats. Brent,
Brent: you know, I, I I'm going to piggyback on the recommends and just follow up with you with the Evermont merch, because, you all weekend.
Brent: I heard that too. I heard a lot about our hats and the compliments that are coming from the hats. I had those new era hats made. They look very, very clean. They're very stylish. I think they fit like with the image that we wanted to present them with. We did take a long time to work on merch. We obviously rebranded, that was a big thing.
Brent: And now that our merch is starting to come in, I think our merch game is kind of strong. Yeah, it is. We should set up a shop. We did do the Travis Matthew polos. We got Travis Matthew jackets done. Those were a hit too. I think, you know, we have a good foundation and we're, we, we got something going here with all this.
Brent: We've got some good swag. We did.
Matthew: So I would, I have a normal recommend.
Joshua: No, no, we need to, we need more merch racks,
Matthew: more merch racks. Okay. Well, what are we making? Now I got, I got one
Joshua: for you. What's that? We need a quarter zips, man.
Matthew: Oh, we do need quarters. Zips. Yeah. Brian, you got to get some quarters zips, man.
Matthew: All right. Well, we'll, we'll have to figure out what, what the premier quarter zip is that we want to use. I actually have some breaking news for you. Okay. Don't get upset. I wore my jacket to the office today.
Brent: Oh, so you didn't save it for the golf tournament. You
Matthew: already used it at a golf tournament already, but I was walking outside and it was a little misty and I was like, I wish I had a nice light jacket to throw on.
Matthew: Oh wait, I do.
Joshua: You wore your Evermont jacket that was specifically for the golf course
Matthew: to the office. Yes.
Brent: Well, you know that the, the jacket's not meant to just sit on a hanger. So I'm sure I'm glad you supported it and rocked it, but did you wear the hat at all this weekend?
Matthew: Oh yeah,
Joshua: of course. I wear the hat all the time.
Joshua: I wear it to islands. You know what I got yesterday? I went to a family party and one of my cousins came up to me and said, Hey, your hat's really cool, but I want a trucker hat. I didn't know we were taking special orders. I told him.
Brent: Oh, that's great. All right. Anything else? No. So, you know, if, if you are interested in our merch, so send us a message on DM, let us know what you think of it. You know, we will we occasionally get to these DMs and we'll send out some hats. But they are, they are becoming popular. They are sort of a little bit of a talk and I'm, I'm, I'm really liking that.
Brent: We spent the time to put in the money we put into
Joshua: it. They look great.
Brent: All right. So as advisors, our passion really falls into helping others. And that's the reason that we do it. There's nothing better than watching somebody come in with so much uncertainty about where their next chapter of life is going.
Brent: And then helping them really just provide that clarity and to find a better outcome of what their next chapter is going to look like, helping them solve all of these issues that they're, they're thinking about and concerned about. And so they could rest easier at night and now they can travel and do the things that they want to do or whatever goals they want to accomplish.
Brent: That's why we do it. So if you're interested in a complete consultation, please reach out to any of us, schedule a time to meet with us. If you'd like our ebook, it's directly on our website. You can also follow the show notes on retirement plan playbook. com. But as always we appreciate you listening to the show.
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.
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