Can’t Get No Satisfaction... Or Can You?

Want to know the secrets to experiencing satisfaction in retirement? We’ve discovered five key situations to which your financial plan needs to lead you. If you can key in on these five points, you’ll have a high chance to achieve retirement satisfaction.

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Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Speaker 1: Back for another edition of Plan With The Tax Man. Thanks for tuning into the podcast with Tony Mauro and myself to talk about getting some satisfaction or as Mick Jagger said, "Can't get no satisfaction."

 

Tony Mauro: Can't get no.

 

Speaker 1: That's right. Can't get no. Or can we? So, we're going to talk about some secrets to experiencing satisfaction in retirement. If you want to know what those are, we've got five we've identified. They're different for everybody, but these are five to maybe pay a little attention to and see if they might help you improve your chances for retirement satisfaction. What's going on with my friend? How're you doing?

 

Tony Mauro: I'm doing good. How about you?

 

Speaker 1: Pretty good. Pretty good. Are you a Stones fan at all? Do you like the Stones?

 

Tony Mauro: I do like the Rolling Stones. I never did appreciate them when I was young, but I do now.

 

Speaker 1: Yeah. [inaudible 00:00:40]. Classic song. Right? Can't get no satisfaction. Great, great song from the Stones. So, I think most people... We probably won't play it here on the podcast just for those reasons that we can't. But I think soon as you hear it, most people just kind of already hear that da, da, da, da, da, they kind of already hear that guitar part going in their head. So, no worries there. But listen, we got these five items here, Tony. Let's run them down real fast and see how the process of going through and working with an advisor, maybe can help achieve some of these or at least improve some of these. And they're pretty wide range here, like the first one's peace of mind, certainly something we want to have in retirement, have some satisfaction there with peace of mind. But regardless of what's going on in the stock market or even in the world, the idea is to be able to retire in any economy, in any environment, because you never know what's going to happen. You never know if a pandemic's going to happen or a war's going to break out or the market's going to crash. It's not ideal, but we want to be able to do it regardless. So, peace of mind comes into play. And that's, I think where the planning process can help because you guys can stress test and show scenarios.

 

Tony Mauro: That's right. And these five we're going to talk about really are the whole basis in my mind of any financial plan, whether we do it or anybody else, it should be the same in my opinion. Because these are the five things that if you have these going for you and you can constantly address them and say yes to, you're going to have a great financial plan and it doesn't have anything to do with the things that make up your portfolio. I think if you just have some investments in your portfolio and you haven't analyzed any of this, I would say you don't have a plan. You may have a lot of money in those portfolios, but may not have these things and you need to get to them to really achieve what I call the financial success.

 

Speaker 1: Well, if you got $10 million, I mean, you're going to say, "Hey, I'm totally great." But depending on how you live your life, does that $10 million give you peace of mind without a plan? Because maybe the way you live, $10 million doesn't get it done.

 

Tony Mauro: Exactly. And for me, peace of mind is, like you said, you know that your portfolio and everything else about your plan does not... I mean, somewhat depends on what's [inaudible 00:03:04] going on in the market, but short-term. But long term, you're not really worried about the news of the day, the war of the day, I mean, because it goes on, it's going on right now as we speak, politically, and the war Ukraine and everything else. There's always doom and gloom on the news. So, without getting into that whole conversation, you want to have peace of mind that your portfolio and your plan, you're going to be okay.

 

Speaker 1: Yeah. We've talked about retirement in various political environments. God willing, if you're walking into retirement, let's say this year or next year, you're going to see multiple administrations. It's not just what's happening with this current one. Sure, it affects a lot of things, but there's always going to be the next administration, then the next one after that, tax changes, rule changes, whatever the case might be. So, if you're looking at a 30 year retirement, which many of us are, bound to be a few things happen, so you got to make sure you got some peace of mind to ride through most of it, as close to peace of mind as you can get. You mentioned diversity, so let's go to that one because that's the second one we talked about income streams. Diversity of those income streams are super important, but we got to be careful not to be too reliant. It used to be just pensions and social security and we called it a day, but that's not the case anymore.

 

Tony Mauro: No, it's not. And we try to strive for three to five different income sources in our plans, and the more, the better. But if we can get that, then it leads us to what we just talked about, more peace of mind, more of feeling good about I've got money coming in from all these different sources. So, if one source is not particularly en vogue at the moment, it's still producing some income for us, but may not be what it was, but it'll be back. And it is not going to alter our lifestyle at all if we've got that normal and good diversity, I think. I see too many clients come and basically they have two, they have social security and a little bit, and I'm talking a little bit, of just savings or some retirement. And if that's all they have, then that's all they have. And then it's the conversation of you have to do as well as you can with what you have.

 

Speaker 1: Well, then your options are just more limited, right? [inaudible 00:05:21]. So, the option is to try to save more, spend less, reduce your lifestyle. That kind of brings things into focus there. I like how you brought in en vogue there a little bit. So, you brought in another song reference to our Can't Get No Satisfaction, although it's Madonna, but that's okay. We'll let it roll. How about number three on our list? Confidence. If you're trying to get satisfaction in your retirement journey, confidence goes a long way. As humans, we need it in just about every aspect of life. That's a crucial one. We talked on our prior podcast a couple weeks ago about the psychology of some things, Tony, and I think confidence goes a long way into that conversation too, because even if you've done a great job and have been a diligent saver, if you don't have a good strategy and a good plan, you may not feel confident that you can even enjoy this money you saved.

 

Tony Mauro: That's right. And this is where the accountant in us comes out with our clients, because we do in this area, sit them down. We do go through the exercise of let's see what you're spending, what your bills are every month in retirement. And you're going to sit down and you're going to help me write them out. And we're going to make sure that we add those up, compare it to the different income sources you've got coming in, so that you'll see that, hey, you've got the confidence, that you're going to be able to pay all your bills. And hopefully you've got extra, so you can take that and go do other things. So, I think that's the most important thing because us as advisors, we could tell them, "Oh yeah, you'll be fine. You'll be fine. But I think we have to show you. Here's your bills, here's your monthly income coming in, you truly are going to be fine." And even we take it a step further, we let the computer software do it, tell them, "Well, even if your income goes down by X amount or you live X number of years, you're still going to be in great shape and not run out of money"

 

Speaker 1: Most of us are visual, so I think we do need to see something and in black and white. And it kind of helps sink it in. We're like, "Ah." We get that "aha" moment going.

 

Tony Mauro: I think the key there is for us as advisors is not to throw so much data at the client because they tend to get lost. So, we try to keep it simple, but it's still very powerful. I mean it's based on fact [inaudible 00:07:34].

 

Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh yeah. Because then your head's spinning and how much do you retain and so on and so forth. Okay. Number four, security. And this could be in any aspect of the plan, but security clearly important. Maybe for some it's the security of that income stream that you just talked about. Maybe it's the security of a long-term care strategy.

 

Tony Mauro: I think yeah, both four and five are this security and being able to know that whether it's my long-term care plan or my healthcare plan, any other plan that you have is going to be there and cover what you need when you need it. Normally, what we tend to do is review every year or every year and a half, their healthcare coverage, long-term care coverage, see if there's any gaps and if they want to try to change something or fill those, just so again, they can build the security that I know that if something happens to me, that I'm going to be all right and everything's going to be paid for. With long-term care, of course, a lot of them talk about being a burden on their family if something happens.

 

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Nobody wants to be the burden. Right? Having that strategy in place, so having that security goes a long way with getting that satisfaction in retirement. And the last one is independence. You mentioned four and five being probably pretty big ones. And independence could be a number of things. Whatever side of the political spectrum you find yourself on, I think all of us would like to have a certain level of independence from government. We don't want to be more reliant on them than we have to, I think most of the time. But it also could be something as simple as independence from our family, Tony. My mom lived with my wife and I, a number of years early on in her retirement. And she was not happy about it, but it just was a situation she found herself in. And it took a while, but then eventually she was able to get into a senior... She was on a waiting list, she got into a senior apartment complex. And while there's things about that that frustrate her, she does often return to the fact that she feels better having some level of independence. We'll say, "Hey mom, do you want to spend the night?" And she'll come over and spend the day, do some things. Do you want to stay the tonight here? And she's like, "No, no, no. I feel better at home. I feel more comfortable in my own surroundings." So, she likes that independence.

 

Tony Mauro: Yeah. It's funny because my own father talks about it a lot. It seems like lately here in our own family, we've lost some relatives and whatnot battling Alzheimer's and dementia, things like that over long periods. And of course he says all the time, he does not want to go into some home. That's his biggest fear of losing his independence and having to rely on either family assistance. He has a great long-term care policy, so again, we're back to, he's confident, we've made him confident that he's secure in his plans, but he definitely wants to be independent. [inaudible 00:10:21].

 

Speaker 1: Doesn't want to give up that independence.

 

Tony Mauro: No. And we were up at... My son actually got married a couple of weeks ago up in Sioux Falls, and so some of his and our friends come up and their aunts and uncles, they're in their eighties, and you could definitely tell that they're really starting to change some, mentally. It's sad to see and hopefully they've got some of this taken care of because then it becomes a worry for the person that's going through it. And I don't think they should have to worry about that.

 

Speaker 1: And that's not healthy. Yeah. That adds to the... Reducing our mental stress in any form in any time of life is always a good idea, stress levels, period. It kind of goes a long way towards helping our health, but certainly as we've become seniors. So yeah, independence. That's the fifth one, folks. So, five, pretty wide, but also very crucial pieces to finding satisfaction in retirement, getting peace of mind, having that diversity, understanding you've got confidence in the plan and the strategy, security in the different aspects of it, and just our own personal independence in retirement, so we still feel like we are in control of ourselves, if you will. Those are five crucial components to a good strategy. And if you need some help with that, definitely make sure you're talking with a qualified professional. If not, Tony, certainly someone, but he is available for you. If you'd like to reach out to him, stop by his website at yourplanningpros.com. He's got 25, 26 years of experience helping folks get to and through retirement. So, a great resource, not only in the Des Moines area, but all around. He's got clients all over. So, reach out to him online, yourplanningpros.com. That is yourplanningpros.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, whatever platform you like to use, Plan With The Tax Man is the name of the show. You can find all the information again at Tony's website. My friend, thanks for hanging out with me. Great conversation this week. I think we'll have to go listen to some Stones now.

 

Tony Mauro: I think so too. Then we have to do it.

 

Speaker 1: Yeah, we have to crank it up a little bit. Have yourself a good week, my friend. And I will see you next time here on Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro.

 

Disclaimer: Securities offered through Avantax Investment Services.  Member FINRA, SIPC, Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services.  Insurance services offered through Avantax Insurance Agency.