Don’t dread this as much as you hated hearing these words as a kid, but it’s time for a pop quiz! We’re putting retirement planning preparedness under the microscope with 5 critical questions to which you need to know the answers. So sharpen those pencils and let’s see how ready you are for retirement.
Helpful Information:
PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/
Contact: 813-286-7776
Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com
Don’t dread this as much as you hated hearing these words as a kid, but it’s time for a pop quiz! We’re putting retirement planning preparedness under the microscope with 5 critical questions to which you need to know the answers. So sharpen those pencils and let’s see how ready you are for retirement.
Helpful Information:
PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/
Contact: 813-286-7776
Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com
Disclaimer:
PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is a registered investment adviser. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investment involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal, or investment adviser to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.
Transcript of Today's Show:
For a full transcript of today's show, visit the blog related to this episode at https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/podcast/
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Speaker 1: Welcome into the podcast. It's Retirement Planning Redefine with John and Nick and it's pop quiz time. We're going to have a little fun here with a retirement pop quiz. And don't worry, it's only five questions and it's multiple choice. So we make this pretty easy. Guys, did you enjoy pop quizzes? When you hear that phrase, do you automatically get filled with dread or with joy? Nick, I'll start with you. How you doing buddy? What's going on?
Nick: Oh, pretty good. Fortunately, I was a pretty good test taker, so never bothered me that much.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Nick: But, so I luck out that way, but I know a lot of people dread it.
Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. Well, you know what? You are the first person, congratulations that I've talked to when I've doing the pop quiz that have said, all right, let's do it. I have no problems with it.
Nick: I don't know if I can go that far, but yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, there you go.
Nick: At least not depressed.
Speaker 1: Not depressed. Okay. John, what's going on my friend? How you doing?
John: Ah, doing all right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
John: I was in between, it depended on the class.
Speaker 1: Okay. Okay.
John: If was something I enjoyed,
Speaker 1: Yeah.
John: It was, let's roll. If it was something I dreaded, I was like aw man.
Speaker 1: I think that's fair. I think, well, this,
John: Got to throw this at me right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's fair. But this should be pretty easy, because this is right up your guys' alley obviously. Right. So this is retirement planning, pop quiz. So folks can play along with us here. I'm going to basically give you guys the question, give you the multiple choice answer. Let you give us the best answer from the choices. And then if you'd like to elaborate on something different or why none of them are a good idea feel free to do that as well. And I can never hear pop quiz anymore without thinking of the movie Speed from the 90s now. I only hear the Dennis Hopper going pop quiz, punk.
Nick: Great movie.
John: That was just on TV the other day. I was scrolling and I saw, and I'm like, oh man, like Nick just said, this is a really good movie.
Speaker 1: It's a remote dropper. Yeah.
John: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You'll drop the remote and watch it. So, pop quiz for the guys here. Let's see how we do. This is kind of just a retirement pop quiz, just five basic questions to check your preparedness or what you might have done and see if we should do things differently or whatever. So number one, I'll give this one to you, John. At what age should people start saving for retirement A, when they begin working B, after they buy their first home or C, once they've paid off all their debt?
John: I'm going to have to go with A, when you begin working. Everyone probably has a different situation, but I'll say that as soon as you start making income, it's good to start saving towards retirement or saving in general. And yeah I'll use one of my clients as an example, started out young, I think started with me when he was 24. And a big question was, Hey, I'm making money. What should I do? And we just started overfunding his retirement accounts. And seven, eight years later life happened, two or three kids.
Speaker 1: Sure.
John: Bought a house, all this stuff. And with all the expenses, he can't save as much, but he's built up such a nice nest egg from his 20s that he's really in an excellent spot. So we just really started out strong and,
Speaker 1: That's a good idea. Yeah.
John: Everyone's seeing those charts where the sooner you start, the more you have at the end, but yeah, there's a lot of truth to that. So I would say as soon as you start an income and have some money, I would definitely sock it away because you don't know what the future's going to hold.
Speaker 1: Now that's a great idea because then when you do, when life does happen, which I was thinking about that with the home thing, it gets tougher. So then if he's only able to put just a little bit away from time to time or on each paycheck or whatever, from the job getting the match or whatever, then you're already up on the game a little bit. So I like that. Nick, want to chime in at all?
Nick: Yeah. I think the answer is just yes. As soon as you can start saving, you should even, and I know it's something that's talked about a lot, but even if you can just save up to the match and kind of get some free money from your employer,
Speaker 1: Right.
Nick: The sooner because it's more about habits than necessarily the amount and just kind of getting used to creating smart habits is really a positive thing that last a long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a good point too. And let's be honest. See, come on, when you paid off all your debts, does that ever happen? Like we'd always be chasing something. Right. Somewhere through life.
Nick: Yeah. There's always something.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well I'll do it after I this or I'll do it after I that. Right. So you don't want to go that route. All right, Nick, I'll give you this one here. Number two, which of these is the best estimate of how much income you'll need in retirement, A 50% of your income, current income, B 85% of your current income, C, 100% of your current income or D, none of the above.
Nick: This is one of those questions that I'll probably annoy people with on the answers. There should maybe be like another option that lets you pick multiple. So the key kind of word in this is need. So in theory, 85% is probably the number for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what we hear, right? That's the term we hear. Yeah.
Nick: But at the same time, from the standpoint of many people that we talked to, they're looking to, especially after the massive market run that we've had over the last 10, 12 years, even including this pull back recently, a lot of people have ended up with more money than they expected, and they're wanting to do things and travel and enjoy, and it becomes less about need more about what actually do you want to do? So I would say somewhere between 85 and 100%. One other thing that we've seen for some people is, especially those that work at large employers. We've had a couple people pointed out recently in the last six months. We've got some people that were used to paying 100 to maybe $200 a month for health insurance per person. And now when they see what they're going to pay with Medicare and so to supplement things like that, there's some expenses that maybe are higher than what they expected. So I would say somewhere between that 85 and 100% is where a lot of people end up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I think we hear the 85. John, I used to hear this comedian. It was pretty funny a way of looking at it. If you've ever been on puddle jumpers. Right. Any of us that have gotten on a plane where you go to little island hopping or whatever, they ask how much you weigh. Right. Because then they say, well, you go, well, why? And they go, well, because we want to know how much fuel to put in. And this guy goes, well, fill it up. Here's my credit card. Right. It's on me, I'll pay because the idea is, so you don't want to just get sort of to retirement and then say, well, 85% enough. I would say 100% is what a lot of people are hoping for because they typically don't want to go backwards in their lifestyle. Is that a fair assessment?
John: Yeah, I would say so. The big thing that typically where I think most people assume 85% is the mortgage might be gone or maybe you were saving 15% into your retirement account. So, that's a spend that's gone, but 100% is you want to maintain the lifestyle. But everyone as Nick kind of stated earlier, everyone's different and everyone's situation's different. So very important to do a plan and make sure that you're living off the income you want to live off of versus just needing, so.
Speaker 1: What you need. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. All right, John, back to you and I've kind of basically just going back and forth with you guys a little bit here.
John: Yep.
Speaker 1: Number three, which of these do you find that retirees fear the most, pretty easy one here I think A, not leaving enough to the kids, B running out of money or C nursing home care? John, what say you?
John: I'm going with B, running out of money. That seems to be the biggest fear, because I think most people don't want to go back to work. And then we hear a lot of times where we're doing plans and it's Hey, I don't want to be old greeter at Walmart at some point. So, let's make sure that the plans solid. So, one thing to alleviate this fear when we're doing planning is, we try to be conservative with the rate of return we're using, the expenses to make sure, Hey, it's better to air on the side of caution versus be aggressive with these things because last thing we want to do is hit your mid 80s and you're looking at your accounts and you starting to get a little nervous, so.
Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly. And I think that's, everybody's going to say B, although Nick, C is right behind it for many people. I mean like neck and neck.
Nick: Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely in theory, I think a lot of times B and C, C can lead to B, realistically in other words, Hey, is there going to be enough money left over for me to have respectable care towards the end of my life? So ultimately it ends up leading to do I have the money, sort of thing, or have I planned properly and do I understand how that ties together? But yeah, I've got a few clients. What I've seen that a little bit more too is in a lot of single clients that they're heavily focused on that, especially women oftentimes,
Speaker 1: For the long term care, you mean?
Nick: Yeah, for sure. And a lot of men like to use the line, just take me out back and that whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Nick: Hear that plenty as well. But there's so many people that are living longer and it's, I was just up North and we were kind of, I was talking with friends and kind of seeing some long time friends and their parents that I haven't seen in a while. And there was a bunch of friends who parents still had one of their parents alive, usually the mom and they were all in their 90s and,
Speaker 1: Right.
Nick: Still doing pretty well. And, but the circle of care needed to help make sure that they maintain. And my grandmother was with my parents and I know how difficult that is. And it's a lot of work. So that's definitely something that people are concerned about.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's got to be on the radar. It's got to be part of the plan. And if you plan right, hopefully you won't have to worry about either one of those. And then if there's something left over, then you can do A as well and leave some money to the kids. So it's all possible, but it's got to have some strategizing going on there. It's got to have some retirement planning redefined if you will. All right. So let's see. Nick back to you here for the lead answer. Number four, which of these examples best represents a diversified retirement plan, A, a mix of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, B three rental homes and a good amount of cash in the bank. So rental income there. C, 10 to 12 different mutual funds or D, none of the above.
Nick: My answer is D none of the above. A lot of people, I think they think about like a 60, 40 mixes.
Speaker 1: Traditional, right.
Nick: A pretty traditional answer, but in our minds, this is the emphasis on the plan. For example, I'll just use two sets of family members. So you've got one set of family members where there's a pension involved. So that pension, between pension and social security live within their means, expenses are covered. They never saved as much as maybe they would have if they had had higher income and were able to save more. And they're in a very comfortable position from a retirement standpoint whereas maybe another set of family members, a sibling earned more money over time, but also spent more money and don't have as many kind of income producing assets going into retirement. And there's a lot more stress there. And so, really the plan from a diversified plan standpoint, it's really ends up being a function of people's risk tolerance and how much sort of risk they're willing to take. You can tell somebody that, Hey, 60, 40 mix of stocked bonds is great till you're blue in the face, but if they don't have market tolerance, then it's never going to work.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
Nick: And so, you have to adapt and adjust, and that's our job as advisors.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And John, typically those 10 to 12 different mutual funds, they're probably large cap. Right. So there're probably a ton of overlap in there and 40% in bonds, I mean, bonds aren't doing so great.
John: Yeah. I think, to kind of back when Nick's saying here, when you look at what's going on today in this market year to date with equity stocks being down and then rates going up, which in turn fixed income markets are down. So both of those at this point in time are down 10 plus percent. So that's not a very good,
Speaker 1: Yeah.
John: Diversified strategy for this period.
Speaker 1: Yeah. 60, 40 is that traditional portfolio split. And it had its place for a long time, but it just doesn't seem to be the case for many people, more and more people right now. So it's always best again, to get it kind of customized. So yeah, I would say none of the above, or at least maybe a little bit of each of these three kind of sprinkled in is more diversified than just one of them. All right. Last question, John will lead off with you here. To make sure you do not run out of money in retirement, only withdrawal blank percent from your portfolio each year A, 1%, B 4%, C 6% or D just find a different strategy altogether.
John: Yeah. I'm going to go with D on this. The rule of thumb typically we hear is 4%, but I'm going to say this is one you definitely don't want to live by the rule of thumb and you want to customize a plan to yourself because everyone's going to be different. And if you just live by a rule of thumb on this one, there's a good chance that you're going to hit that fear of most retirees and that's running out of money. Or if you're just doing 1%, you might not be living to the best of your ability. So, definitely here it's D and do a plan and figure out what's your strategy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nick, do you concur with that one?
Nick: Yeah. I think an example from this is the last really seven to 10 years where a lot of people that were maybe risk averse, avoided some of the market. And we know that it was very, very difficult to get any sort of return on conservative money. So whether it's cash in the bank, CDs,
Speaker 1: Right.
Nick: Bonds, those sorts of things. And so it made it difficult for people that were conservative to be able to sustain that sort of withdrawal rate and really it kind of emphasize the importance of having an overall balance. But yeah, again, one of the things that we tell people oftentimes is that one of the good things about kind of planning in the financial world is that there's something for everybody, and that can be one of the bad things too, because it makes it hard for people to navigate. But usually, once you really kind of drill down and figure out what people are comfortable with, there's some sort of solution out there, or combination of solutions to kind of get them to the point that they need to be. And that's kind of the importance of planning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. And the 4% rule, it was a fine rule of thumb for a while, maybe back of the napkin. But most of the time you hear people say it's more like maybe 2.9 or 3.1. And so it's just better to find a specific strategy altogether versus relying on in general. Again, if you're out to dinner and you're just doing some quick math and you say, Hey, we'll use 4% or something like that. Maybe that's one thing, but really at the end of the day, getting it dialed in for what you actually need to do, get a strategy, get a plan and get started if you're not working with a qualified professional, like the team at PFG Private Wealth. So reach out to John and Nick, if you need some help and you're not already working with them and your checking out the podcast. You can find them online at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's the website, lot of good tools, tips, and resources.
Speaker 1: You can contact them that way. You can subscribe to the podcast, whatever you'd like to do. Find all the information again at pfgprivatewealth.com or reach out to them at 813-286-7776. Guys, you did well. You passed. So thanks for hanging out and playing the game with us here on the show. And we'll see you next time on Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick.
