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1.6.23: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Producer:
Any examples used are for illustrative purposes only and do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs, and may not be suitable for all investors. It is not intended to predict the performance of any specific investment and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy.

Producer:
Welcome to Retirement Unbroken with your host, Merrit Strunk. Merrit is a licensed fiduciary and financial advisor who always places your needs first. Merrit works hard each day to educate Americans like you on how to reach the financial freedom they've worked so hard for. And he can help you, too. So now let's start the show. Here's Merrit Strunk.

Merrit Strunk:
Hey, this is Merrit Strunk. Welcome again to the Retirement Unbroken show and podcast. I'm also the president and lead advisor for Momentum Financial. And I want to welcome Matt McClure, our senior producer for the show today. Matt, what have you done for your country lately?

Producer:
Well, you know, I've tried to do all that I can. Basically, since we just went through the holidays, I ate a lot of food and probably slept a little too much. A few, a few nights. But, you know, the rest of the year, I don't get much sleep. So there we go. I was catching up.

Merrit Strunk:
One of my roommates in college. His father was a colonel in the Army. And every time I'd answer the phone when he'd call, he goes, What have you done for your country lately? And I was like, You know, I'm a college student, but is there anything I'm doing for my country lately? All right. So I want to thank all of our retirement Unbroken nation listeners that are here today. Welcome. You know the drill. We're here to give you information. Education, so that you can unlock what is possible for your financial future. If you've never been to our website that's retirement unbroken dot com. Drop by drop by there. Check out the information other podcast episodes. You can access those there. You can also click the button there for a complimentary consultation. And in that, you know, if you take us up on that offer, what a great opportunity to kick the tires, look under the hood, do an inspection for your financial plan at no cost or obligation. By the way, we'll look at your retirement accounts. We'll look at your rate of return.

Merrit Strunk:
We'll look at the fees inside of your portfolio. We'll talk about net worth projections, income projections, taxation and Social Security maximization. If that isn't a lot. And that's all for you to get clarity on your situation. By the way, we do this radio show and podcast and you can access it anywhere you access podcasts. So a lot of folks like to listen to it on iTunes or on Spotify, but you can stop by listen, Hey. Mowing the grass, doing chores. You can listen to it hanging out by the pool. I know that sounds weird. We're mental a winner here. But hey, we're in San Diego and we're warmer than most peoples. Although we have got an entire year of rain in about three weeks here. Crazy. So we're getting slaughtered with rain for the last three weeks. Solid here. And you can also reach us by the old-fashioned way. 858 521 9700. By the way, odd fact here, Matt, the last hard line phone in Norway has just gone away. They're completely hard-line phone gone. Doesn't happen anymore. Everyone is cellular.

Producer:
Wow. I didn't even know that. That's that's insane. Is that like, personal phone lines are like businesses, too.

Merrit Strunk:
Or a personal phone lines? Yeah, personal phone That.

Producer:
Yeah, I kind of like. I think. I think my mom is one of the last in this country to have a hard line phone in her house and literally all she gets on it are spam calls these days, spam.

Merrit Strunk:
Charitable, charitable giving, solicitation. I'm sure she was really busy here in the weekend. Okay. So what's up for the show today? We're going to do a breakdown of 2020 to talk about the market's inflation, energy cost and things like that. We're going to kind of do a good news, bad news, kind of where the rubber hits the road and then can you get better rates than bank CD's right now on guaranteed rates? And then we're going to talk about the most important things you can do. Here we are, 20, 23, hard to believe and things you could do to get ready for this year as it's getting started here. I'm sure many of you listening today could agree with us. Thank goodness. 2022 is now over with. Right. I think we would all say that that that has been a real punch in the gut. 2022 has been a real tough one. We got popped in the nose. I don't know how many times for the United States on just the spinning wheel of whatever the bad news was. So, yes, you know, it's like, all right, let's just shake the dust off, get ready for a much better year here. Before we get started here and we're going to we're going to briefly touch on the markets what's going on today. We want you to know that you know that most life decisions include some aspect of financial things, right? Most life aspect, some some kind of component of financial, which means you may need a fiduciary, a professional financial planner, somebody to be in your corner at some point in your life.

Merrit Strunk:
And look, even Tiger Woods needed a swing coach. You know, it could go back to the go back to male, kick the tires, do the inspection work on the fundamentals of your swing, those kind of things. But we're talking about financial aspects. So when you reach out to us, make sure you mention that you would like your personalized retirement unbroken report. And that'll be a great start to the beginning of the year and help you answer the big questions like if you kept doing what you're doing, where would you end up, right? Is that where you want to be or are there better opportunities and strategies for you? So I firmly believe and tell me if you think this is gut smacking of the truth here, Matt, is your financial past does not have to equal your financial future, right? Your financial past does not have to equal your financial future. And that little equal sign that you see in your head there that this equals that just cross that through does not have to determine the rest of your life. It doesn't. So I also say that every second is the next best opportunity for you to get started on your new better plan. But there's a catch, folks, right? Here's the catch. You got to do something. You have to take action. You've got to make a call. You've got to ask those questions, the good ones, and take personal responsibility. And here's a little bit of tough love here.

Merrit Strunk:
About the personal responsibility for your financial being. There's nobody coming to save you. There's nobody who's going to is coming to save you. But you. Right. But you. I mean, yeah, we'd all like that rich uncle to to come in there and swoop you up and say it's going to be okay, here's a bajillion dollars, you're going to be fine. But for most of us, you know, the odds are it's up to us. We've got to take personal responsibility for our financial outcome. So 2023 is a great opportunity to invest. Why the market is down. And if you do that, you can experience and grow in the next bull market when it's ready to take off again. And when it does, it will likely be a violent recovery. Recovery, right? So good news comes things, something happen. And then, you know, with all the technology in the market today, it probably takes off pretty fast and you're going to miss that if you're are not in on it right now. And this is a great opportunity here in 2023 to get in. Start investing if you haven't already or to reposition. There's a lot of great things right now that you can do rebalancing, be one of those. That brings us to the market update The S&P right at the last few hours here, really three 3/10 of a percent popped up there. So it's a 0.75, three fourths of a point up. Dow is almost half a point up, Nasdaq is 0.69 up the VIX.

Merrit Strunk:
And again, I say this all the time, but if you don't know what the VIX VIX is, that's the volatility index and it's also called the fear index. When there's fear and trepidation, that index will go up. So it's kind of a fun indicator if you've never looked at it before. Just type it in and you know, look at VIX, that's a -2.45. Well, that's a good sign for today. That's a good sign. Gold came up a little bit, 0.77. And then oil, good news for all of us went down a -4.19%. So that's kind of big. So there was an interesting quote that was attributed to Deutsche Bank today. It was on MarketWatch website and it said 2022 was the biggest outlier year in market history as both stocks and bonds plunged. So I'd like to say to that as a big der. Yes, I know. So they're just saying what everybody else knows big der or insert duh. You know, right there. This reminds me of a song. I read that and I was like, when when both stocks and bonds are down, if you're not if you're investing like an average. Joe Well, there were just really isn't a lot of opportunity. You're going to take the the elevator down to the ground floor with the market. There's a song and Matt, you probably are going to click on this. There was a motown song by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and the song is called Nowhere to Run. Oh, yeah, Nowhere to run to, baby.

Producer:
Nowhere, Nowhere to hide. Doo, doo doo.

Merrit Strunk:
You know that kind of deal. Well, when stocks and bonds are down, where are you going to run? Where are you going to hide? If you're the typical retiree that when I mentioned Motown and that song, Nowhere to Run, and you knew exactly what I was talking about, then you there's a big chance actually, that you may have a 60 over 40 portfolio, a 60% equities and 40% bonds. And as we've covered before in this show, 2022 is the worst market in a century for the 6040 portfolio. So if you're a retiree, you're out there, you're in the drawdown period of your life where you're taking distribution of your assets and you have something very stereotypical 60 over 40, you know, from from your planning source. You would have gotten just you know, you would have gone down with the market. You would experience something very similar with the market. Odds are another interesting point, which is nice, because, you know, we just we live in the earth. We live on the planet Earth and we're a globe. And the United States is now more integrated with everything that's happening in in the rest of the planet here.

Merrit Strunk:
Francis Inflation rate fell. It fell to 6.7. And that was in comparison to a 7.1 in November. Well, look, you know what I'm what I'm thinking is if our inflation rate is going down now and it was like 6.7 and France being leader, you know, developed nation in Europe and its inflation rate is going down, this bodes well for what we want to see, you know, some cooling down of prices and cost of things. So that's a good sign. I really like it. It's a good sign that we're headed in the right direction. Whether or not that's going to influence the Federal Reserve and their intention to continue to raise rates in order to get that inflation down to two. You know, and then it's it's it's like the guy who can't dance and has had a little too much to drink. He's just wrecking the dance floor. The Fed is wrecking the dance floor. He's bumping into everybody. People are getting bumped off the dance floor. So that's what the Fed's doing. They're going to try to get that down.

Producer:
And now for some financial wisdom, it's time for the Quote of the Week.

Merrit Strunk:
Bring it on, brother.

Producer:
Yeah, we do. And we actually have it's a little bit of a two for one special this time around. You know, we're just we're giving them away. This episode of Retirement Unbroken here, the first of our quotes of the week this time comes from Robert G. Allen, who is an author, an influential investment guy as well. And he said, quote, How many millionaires do you know have become wealthy by investing in savings accounts? I rest my case. Wow.

Merrit Strunk:
Yes, I rest my case. I love that part of the quote. I rest up like drop the mic. Walk off.

Producer:
Exactly. Exactly. There's a very short list of people in that as an answer to that question. Probably none. Oh, but yeah, we've got number two here for our second quote of the week coming from the world of sports, from Venus Williams. As a matter of fact, former number one in both singles and doubles tennis in the entire world around the entire globe. And Venus Williams said this one time, and I think this is very appropriate, especially coming through this year that we've just been through. Right. She goes, quote, I don't focus on what I'm up against. I focus on my goals and try to ignore the rest. Very wise. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Merrit Strunk:
Boy, wouldn't that be great for a lot of those folks who are social media addicted and they see the very best version, tailored, retouched version, everybody else's life. And that's getting a lot of teenagers down. A lot of 20 something millennials are getting down, going where my life in comparison is not quite as good as that. You know, Venus is saying, look, I'm a competitor. I'm not worried about that other person over there. You know, I just play my game. You know, you mentioned Robert Allen and I remember some of his books from back when I was a kid and absorbing I mean, I was one of those odd, freakishly odd kids reading these books and getting cassette tapes and listening to those things, writing it down and then regurgitating it back. You know, I was that was Tony Robbins, man. People are like, What's spouting out of your mouth? And Robert Allen was one of those authors, and he's got a quote that I will share with our listeners here because I think it's just so awesome. Don't let the opinions of the average man sway you dream and he thinks you're crazy, succeed and he thinks you're lucky. Acquire wealth and he thinks you are greedy. Pay no attention to him and he simply doesn't understand.

Producer:
Wow. That's awesome.

Merrit Strunk:
Yeah. So ignore the dream killers, right? And then when you succeed, they're going to say I was lucky. Not skill, not effort, not hard work, and then acquire wealth. And he thinks you're greedy. Shame on you for being wealthy. Yeah. Hey, man, I failed and succeeded and failed. Didn't succeed. Right? And those kind of things. So, look, don't pay any attention to him. Just nuggets. Robert. Alan is just golden, man. So that brings us to kind of we said we were going to hit some big takeaways from 2022. And for many of you, this is going to be a review. But of course we're reviewing what happened in 2022 and then that will prepare us into some comments about 2023 here. Yeah, 2022. It's funny, we're meeting with some of our clients and say, you know, we're so used to saying this is how well you did and we're talking about how well your investment portfolio did. And now it's a conversation of how much did you participate in the downside of this market as opposed to the upside. You know, and those are tough conversations, however, not as tough as some other folks. Right. When you when those folks who are not using, say, tactically managed portfolios, who have a passive manage, passive manage portfolio, say maybe an index fund, that that's going to hurt, you're going to get hurt.

Merrit Strunk:
So we know, as we talked about last episode and kind of touched on it a little bit earlier here, the S&P APR is down somewhere around close to 20% in 2022. So year, year end, the Nasdaq had been down. I think as low as and -39 at one point, but it somewhere more closer to a 35%, -35% by year end 2022. That is just meat on the bone. More information related to some of those data points we hit. And so inflation being the biggest factor here. So inflation was somewhere close to, say almost close to a little over, actually, from what I remember, nine, nine plus percent at its worst and now has come down, you know, recently here, back down to 7.1. I think it even came a little bit lower in the 6.7 area. So, you know, here we are in America. We're finally beginning to feel a little relief after all of our prices went sky high. Interestingly, there is. Yeah, new news that I got this morning was that. The entire state of Colorado. Is out of eggs.

Producer:
Bomber the entire state.

Merrit Strunk:
Yeah. Yeah. So it's not about inflation so much as, you know, supply chain sort of issues is because what I heard was there is a a new rule which says no more cage chicken, product, eggs. It has to be an uncaged, non caged chicken eggs that are going to be sold. Well, I suppose somebody who didn't think about the implications of that ruling or that rule wasn't planning on there being a shortage of uncaged chicken eggs. And now but, you know, there's some big providers of those things. So if if, say, California also gets its eggs from some of those big producers, we're going to continue to get caged chicken eggs and Colorado is out of it. So very interesting here.

Producer:
Yeah. Wow.

Merrit Strunk:
I'd say a supply chain probably more than, say, inflation there.

Producer:
Yeah, Well, and they've been dealing with bird flu and all that too is really done a number on on the poultry industry to begin with. So yeah, that's that's just compounding it.

Merrit Strunk:
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Don't hang out with chickens because you're going to get bird flying. Is that what you're saying? Right?

Producer:
Pretty much. You got to stop hanging out with the chickens. Married? I mean.

Merrit Strunk:
Really? Yeah. Yeah. So 20, 22. Back to our topic here. I got off the topic here. Back to 2022. We saw things like, you know, obviously grocery, food, fuel, obviously rent up like really high prices, you know, So our inflation rate now, I mean, has fallen five straight months in a row and it's expected to continue its descent throughout 2023. And, you know, our friendly folks at the Fed Wait a minute. That's quite some alliteration. Friendly folks at the Fed are going to make sure that happens far, far, far right. So what else? Well, we know the energy cost, right? Energy costs, fuel prices had a global effect. Global right. And a lot of that was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, ruptured global energy supply chain. We know the the pipeline from Canada to America got killed the first day that Biden was in office. And of course, the decrease in leases and stuff or United States production pumping of oil was also turned off. And that really, really hit us. So households on businesses, you know, throughout 2022, we're all facing higher energy bills and extreme price volatility. And yes, the uncertainty around the war looms quite large. And while recently our our winter storm I don't know if they call that the winter storm or the decade that just got, you know, got in the in the process here of the United States has made energy, you know, a higher demand as well. So I think the only really warmer place it was West Coast in California. It just felt wrong where we had a day that was really close to 80 degrees and the rest of the country was going through a bitter snowstorm in chilly temperatures.

Merrit Strunk:
So even today say oil went down as we covered here, but gas prices are coming back down from the summer's peak market time and all time high. So I think the the average that was reported recently was about 3.69 for a gallon of gas here. So if we peaked out average United States average about five, $5 per gallon, then we've come down quite a bit from that. And, you know, food, you know, I'm sure that, you know, the New year celebration, the holidays, when when you know, mom or your spouse or you went out and purchase groceries. I mean, you just have to be not noticing, intentionally not noticing the the the bill at your register if it hasn't rang a bell on you. Right. So according to the USDA dot gov website, the food at home, say grocery or supermarket food purchases had increased 12% since November 2021. So you can call that a year ago, Right? 12% increase from a year ago. Well, what about the other portion of that? Not just groceries, but hey, man, we're going to go out and have date night. So that's food away from home restaurant purchases that folks went up 8.5% since November 2021. And I don't know if in your market that you experience this. You go into a restaurant, you sit down, have your meal when the bill comes, you know, you've got this bill. But then in your market, did you experience a COVID surcharge of, say, two or 3%?

Producer:
Oh, yeah, yeah. That's happened. Not everywhere, but it did happen. Yeah.

Merrit Strunk:
Yeah. And I felt like. Why don't you just reflect that on the prices of your food? So we know what we're ordering, not the surprise, you know, kick in certain part of your anatomy at the end while the bill comes, you're like, Oh, look at that. You know, So that was the other part of that. So if you get an 8.5 plus three, that's eight, nine, ten, 11. Yes, that's 11 and one half percent if you if you're taking notice here. So also because of the federal funds rate, you know, borrowing or financing became a lot higher. So in its effort to tamp down these interest rates, you know, the Fed has risen those interest rates. Was it seven times in the past year? My goodness, seven times. So although the central bank controls just one interest rate, that's a federal funds rate, which the banks pay attention to, to lend money to each other overnight, those actions almost have immediate impact on things like lending and mortgages and car loans and credit rates. I'm sure that if you were thinking about buying a house, mortgage rates were certainly on top of your mind and you could see how fast that changes. They got people, you know, in those companies, they they monitor that very closely and they'll change it same day, same day or in anticipation. So having gone through that, what's the bottom line here? You know, what we've seen is that if you're a pre-retiree, you're actually afraid to spend money.

Merrit Strunk:
People start tightening their belts. If you're anticipating retirement coming up in five years, you know, well, we better tighten the belt on expenses here because they're afraid to spend their money and down market as they see their 401. K and IRA shrinking up. I just wish folks, you know, when they went to the polls, they had paid attention to what's going on with that. They kind of voted. I vote for worse market conditions. I vote for shrinking IRAs and 401. K. So nobody's going to vote for that, but they don't equate that right. So in in our situation where we deal with clients, we want to help folks, our listeners, our clients help solidify a plan that will empower you to live the retirement lifestyle you worked so hard for. So we're going to pick up where we left off here. This ends this segment here at Retirement Unbroken Show. If you haven't stopped by our website or given us a call, please do so. We'd love to chat with you. I do make it a policy to talk with everyone personally. So come on back here for the second segment of the show and join the Retirement Unbroken show with Merrit Strunk.

Producer:
Big changes could be coming and they may affect your retirement. I'm Matt McClure with the Retirement.Radio Network. Powered by AmeriLife. Increases in costs, market volatility and fears of a possible recession. All have people who are close to retirement worried about the future. Some people who were considering early retirement are staying in the workforce, while others who had already called it quits are going back to work. Marketwatch recently published a list of eight big things retirees and pre-retirees should keep an eye on. Some of them are pretty obvious. Like number one, inflation. As the prices of goods and services continue to go up at rates not seen in four decades, just paying for everyday things could eat through your retirement savings more quickly than you thought. Another concern Social Security. The trust fund is set to be exhausted by the year 2034. Potential changes to save the program could have a big impact on your retirement years. Two items on the list have to do with savings. How much money to set aside for retirement and how to address a growing gap in that amount versus what most of us have actually saved. Yahoo finance contributor Vera Gibbons recently reported that the savings gap has been exacerbated by the pandemic, with a lot of folks dipping into their retirement accounts just to get by.

Vera Gibbons:
We are in an inflationary environment here, and some of the experts I spoke to said given the fact that costs are going up for just about everything, they expect more people to actually tap into their retirement accounts or contribute less this year. Also, keep in mind that people are still quitting their jobs at a record rate, and that group may also be tapping into their retirement accounts too, to cover their costs.

Producer:
Health care spending and drug prices are two more things on the market watch list of retiree concerns. And they could be impacted by the last two items on the list Diabetes, which continues to affect more Americans each year and uses up a good portion of the nation's health care resources and exercise, which could actually bring costs down by helping you stay healthier longer. So which of these items is your biggest cause for concern heading into retirement? That's a key question to consider. As economic uncertainty continues to cause headaches for us all. With the Retirement.Radio Network powered by AmeriLife, I'm Matt McClure.

Producer:
Missed part of today. Show your Retirement Unbroken is available wherever you listen to podcasts and online at RetirementUnbroken.com.

Merrit Strunk:
All right. Welcome back. This is Merrit Strunk, host of the Retirement Unbroken Show. We just got through talking about what's this mean for you? We just ran through 2022 and all the things that happened related to the financial aspects of your life, the market, you know, inflation, things like that, the prices at the pump and the grocery store. And what we just said right before the end of the first segment here is that too many folks, pre-retirees or retirees are afraid to spend their money when it comes into down markets. I get it, especially if you're a retiree and you're taking income in the distribution stage of your life and you don't have any guaranteed income, that's going to be tough, right? So we do when we work with folks, we want to make sure that we take those things in mind, put a plan together that will help you live the retirement lifestyle you work so hard for. So how can you get started? Well, you can, like I say, just stop by our website or you call it give us a call. And for those folks who haven't gotten their retirement unbroken, customized report, we're going to take a look at all the things. Like we said, IRAs for one is retirement savings accounts, projections on spending, Medicare, how to maximize your Social Security. It's a shame, Matt, how many people leave hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table where they could have had that money? So if I said to you, Matt, put yourself in the position of somebody we might meet across from the table and say, would you rather give hundreds of thousands of dollars to the government a money that you were entitled to? Matt, are you okay with just letting them keep it? Or would you like that over your lifetime on right the answer down here, Matt. So I can take notes while we're talking. Go, go ahead, buddy.

Producer:
I would love that money for myself. And, you know, if I'm entitled to it, I want it.

Merrit Strunk:
So let's just say hundreds of thousands of dollars on average for the average married couple. Right. And what you're saying, Matt, if I hear you correctly, is, nah, better not. I want to keep that. Is that right?

Producer:
I want my I want my money.

Merrit Strunk:
I want that money. I want my money. Well, I totally get where you're coming from, Matt. And I do, too. But most people don't check those things out. They don't understand and they don't ask the questions or they don't talk to folks that deal with this all the time. So maximizing your Social Security for a lot of people, married couples, that could be $1,000,000 decision over their lifetime. Because you say, I'm going to take it now early or I might take it when I get my full benefits or I'm going to take it later, or I have 24% more later on in life for me and my wife and I want to use this maybe the spousal benefit strategy, and then you multiply that by 30 years and subtract the difference between when you said you were going to do it and when the maximizing strategy is that can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's folks, that's what I'm talking about. And if you need help figuring that out, Medicare, then give us a call. I'm going to go ahead and give that number to you. 858 521 9700. Or you can go by the RetirementUnbroken.com and go by their RetirementUnbroken.com. So the good news and bad news about 2022. Boy, do I need to even go over it. The market dropped throughout 2022. You know, the headlines are this is this is the the worst market in in the last 50 years, the 60 over 40 portfolio, like I mentioned, the worst performance in a century.

Merrit Strunk:
Terrible news for retirees. Right? If they didn't take advantage of advanced and evolved strategies like tactically managed portfolios or bond alternative strategies, which we often talk about on this show because people just don't know about them. Right. The good news is this, in essence, does provide some opportunities. You've got opportunities to rebalance, to re-examine, to get a new fix on your risk exposure, your risk tolerance and reposition better then it's so funny. What if you what, Matt? What if you were the average Joe, right? Investing in 2008 and you suffered a 40% loss in the market on average, right? And that was a terrible time. Great Recession type of stuff, right? Many people listening today have no idea what that was like. Well, if you experience this now, then you kind of you get a corollary, right, or something very similar. So can you imagine going looking in the mirror and go, I did it again, 2008. I did it because I wasn't paying attention and never again. Now, later in life, guess what? If you didn't change your risk tolerance, you didn't change your allocation, you didn't participate with evolved investment strategies because things have changed. You know, there's different strategies and things that just quite frankly, weren't available back in 2008.

Merrit Strunk:
Then can you imagine? Look in the mirror and go, Oh, I did it again. Are you tired of doing that? Time to get off the hamster wheel, right? That's no bueno. You do that. So it's a good time to get more fee efficient strategies with the assets that you hold. Or look at a Roth conversion to implement, implement and improve your tax exposure or tax diversification for your retirement. Maybe that's an opportunity, right? So rebalancing, kicking the tires, looking under the hood, re evaluating during this time. We all do that like people set goals for their fitness, right? What am I doing? I want to stop doing what do I want to achieve? You know, it's too bad it takes a new the calendar changing for us to take stop and step aside and reevaluate life and what's going on. Well, but you could do that now. I give you permission to do it as if you need a permission. I'm giving you permission to go ahead and do that. Step aside and kick the tires. Kick the tires. Get a home inspection for your financial situation. Right. A smart review. Many times on the show we talked about like a smart review. And like I said, what does that mean? Risk tolerance. Rate of return, you know, allocation, exposure to international markets, exposure to market volatility, those kind of things.

Producer:
Need a higher rate of return from your safe money. Listen up. It's time to beat the bank CD rates.

Merrit Strunk:
There is a interesting side effect or side benefit of the Fed funds rate lending rate rise is that fixed interest vehicles have improved. We went from a period of low interest rate environment. You could barely get anything on your money in the bank to where it's gotten a little bit better. So can you beat a fixed rate of return? And I would say that we're here guaranteed rate of return on a CD. You know, when you go to your bank, your credit and you get a CD eight and they generally have terms that are one year or two year three or four year, five year CD type of situation. Can you get better than that? Well, there's some pretty attractive rates that are out there these days on those things. And these vehicles are called migas or m y g a multi year guaranteed annuity. And it's not the bank that is guaranteeing that rate. It's the insurance carrier y. Well, folks, these companies have existed, many of them, for 100 years or so. I can remember one that took a life insurance policy on Queen Elizabeth and they turned down Napoleon. Get out. Right. So these are some of the most conservative institutions on the planet, and they're very, very good at knowing what kind of return they have to get in order to meet their obligations to their policy owners.

Merrit Strunk:
So where the bank is all on. The Fed funds rate. The insurance company knows what they'll get on their investments and what their spread is, and they can guarantee many times a higher rate of return than, say, your bank. So it might be better for you if you've got this. I don't want to put the money in the market, but I would like some rate of return that's better than bank rate. What can you do? Oh, and that you want it guaranteed, right? So it might be who've you to get educated on these things? There's pros and cons to each one. Right. So give us a call if you're interested in finding out what are the best rates nationally to do that and get better than your than your traditional CD. Yeah, I can remember way back when in the seventies, where my grandma in Lafayette, Louisiana, her name was Marie. And I say Marie because it was a Cajun area there. Marie and Marie would live off the interest on her CD's and you used to be able and that's you could say that she would say you used to could, you used to, could live on that. Right. Hey like that for a southern ism.

Producer:
That's my family 100%. We, we said that when I was a kid all the time.

Merrit Strunk:
Yeah. Yeah. Used to could and fit into. Oh yeah. You know, you, you know fit in to. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm fixing to.

Producer:
Yeah, absolutely. I heard it many times.

Merrit Strunk:
And how about the IMO? Not often heard. You have to decipher that one. I will. I will do this. I will do.

Producer:
That. Yeah. Yeah. That's almost like.

Merrit Strunk:
The stuff I'm going to.

Producer:
Yeah, It's almost like you want to, you know, don't. Do you want to?

Merrit Strunk:
And the last one I'll throw in there is responding to something in the negative. Like for instance you want to want to, you want to and the answer would be a two word answer. No. Nuh. So would be you want to go elsewhere? And they'd say, No, no, no, nah.

Producer:
You could use either one. But they had to use both just to make sure they got the point across. Yeah.

Merrit Strunk:
Not not only you deeply Southern, but you're also completely redundant, right?

Producer:
Right. Exactly.

Merrit Strunk:
No, no, no. Yes, I'm. Oh, and I'm fitted to.

Producer:
Rep that from the Department of Redundancy.

Merrit Strunk:
Department Department? Yes. So Marie would live off that interest rate from her CD. And that's been a very, very long time where you got 12% on your on your CD. Oh, my goodness. So it may behoove you, like I said, to check out those cash on the side sitting around, get better than bank rate. And what are those options here?

Producer:
Want to know where your hard earned money is going. It's time for an inflation demonstration.

Merrit Strunk:
There was a study that is referenced on Fox Business dot com and it's about inflation, retirement savings shortfall and home equity and so on. But the situation here is adult children. That would be both me and you. We're adult children. We're adults and I guess mentally were children. Is that what they're trying to say is that we are worried to a high degree about the impact of high inflation on our parents retirement savings. That's what the study said. And it turned out 60% said that they expressed some concern over inflation hurting their parents financial situation. They said they're afraid that their parents won't be able to afford a retirement And later years. And that's that survey. It comes from the American Advisors Group or AARP. I get it. I understand, because when your parents say are. In their eighties or mid eighties or late eighties, and you see this inflation go up and they may be on a fixed income and maybe they need care. You know, they may need care at this point. You may be having care come in and helping them. I know this situation very well and we've got to make the money stretch. We have to make their assets stretch and work for them while they still can enjoy their lives and still get the care they need. So I totally get this. Um, so this retirement savings crisis is real. So says the study that many Gen Xers that would be after the Boomers, their adult children are telling us that caring for their parents will be extremely difficult and potentially unattainable.

Merrit Strunk:
That's a scary part. And that came from that study as well. Now, you know, I was talking to a gentleman today that makes a good living, has assets. And he said to me, I just need to make sure that I have a provision where if I get dementia, am I going to be okay and how is that going to be taken care of? And since dementia is at epidemic proportions globally, we've covered that in a previous segment and gave attribution to that on a study. It's something like every shocking, like every 3 seconds somebody gets a case of dementia, you know, Now we're not talking about forgot where the keys are. It's a serious brain atrophy, having a hard time with that cognitive stuff. There's a natural level of that that we get to, and we're a little bit older, but where you may forget what you're saying or lose track of what's going on or have trouble hanging in the conversation. But with dementia, that is significant. There needs to be care. And with such a high incidence rate globally, I think it makes perfect sense as a financial advisor that we cover what would long term care expenses be and what are the provisions of how that's going to be paid for in your financial plan? So if you don't have that in place, then it probably need to have that conversation if it's not part of your financial plan thus far.

Merrit Strunk:
Most people kind of just like if it happens, it happens, We'll deal with it at that time. But I do I do say this. I'd rather be taken care of at home in that situation than be in a state run facility. You may say that. Well, I'll be unaware of it, so doesn't matter. You're still going through it. You're still going through it. And the person who is closest to you has to go through it with you. And they may be cognitively with it at that time. And that's going to cause them stress. I dare say they're going to want to supervise the care rather than give the care at that time. Matt, I know that you see some of this up close in your life. I, too, see this up close in my life. And I also see it very closely in many of our clients lives, their parents. Right. And the stress and worry that they go through. And they may be geographically removed. You know, so for adult children who are geographically removed from their parents, it becomes a real task on how do you provide the care? Do you bring it in? Can you afford it? How is it going to be paid for? And if you don't have that situation and you are the person we're talking about, we're doing planning for you, let's say that that you're in a situation where you can't possibly cover all the cost of that happens, but it's better to have some, in my opinion, it's better to have some dilution of those costs in your plan and have a provision for it rather than no provision whatsoever in the mix.

Merrit Strunk:
Because, you know, you can call it extended care, you can call it long term care. But the truth of it is for many people is the geographically closest female child of yours, if your other spouse is not existing, will end up giving that care to you. Right. That comes from studies on that kind of situation that I've read before. And men, I want to talk to you. Fathers, husbands. It is our duty. Whether you raised your right hand and swore on the Bible or not, that you promise to take care of your spouse and your children. And part of that is making sure that this conversation has happened because that geographically closes daughter, if she has to, will give up on her hopes and her dreams and her life and put them on hold so that they can go and take care of Mom or you. And many times it said that the person who's giving that care will get as sick or sicker than the person they're giving care to. And it's a real bummer. So it's better that that person actually supervises care rather than gives the care. And I can tell you that that's a fact. Yeah. So in that situation, better to go through the conversation. Education, at least be aware and educated in that situation.

Producer:
Well and I think to merit just to just to chime in on it. Yeah we don't as human beings I feel like we don't like we don't like having those conversations. It's it's an icky feeling for us. We don't like to think about, you know, getting toward the end of our life and getting sick, getting toward the end of our life and passing away. Those, though, are important conversations to have. You know, I mean, I'm extremely glad that my dad, before he passed almost just a year ago now, before he passed and he had dementia as well, he had a different kind of dementia than than the normal memory loss dementia. He had frontal lobe dementia. So it was a more of a behavioral thing and and human interaction thing that that was with him. But he remembered everything but but, you know, I mean, I'm so glad that he did two things. One was he had a good life insurance policy. And so that really meant so much to us as a family. And number two, he did some preplanning and had and had a living will as well. So we didn't have to guess, you know, like before he passed, after he passed, we didn't have to guess. We didn't have to worry about how things were going to get paid for. That was all taken care of. And that meant so much to us. So, you know, when you're doing some sort of financial planning for for your future, also take into account those who are going to still be here after you have left this earth.

Merrit Strunk:
Well said. Thank you for contributing that mat. You know, it's it's it's an odd day and every day event. It's an odd day where I don't have the word estate planning or trust enter into a conversation. Just the life of a of a financial planner and a fiduciary financial advisor. And you had said living will OC living will will get probated and there is a cost to getting going through probate and many times that could take a year or two years depending on the estate and the backlog law of the of the legal offices there. A trust does not pass away. The trust continues to own the assets and it can bypass probate. So I know I know folks right now that we're talking to that have a rather large estate that mom had. And, you know, upon her passing, you know, it's going into a year of probate on some rather large assets. And it'd be better just if if she had done her planning and a trust, it would have been no problem. Right. So at the very least, like you're saying. Yeah. Have a will, you know, and certainly that was nice that it had a life insurance policy because that could skip probate and go straight to the beneficiary tax free and probate free. And it also counts for life insurance.

Merrit Strunk:
What kind of policy do you have? A lot of the policies these days did not exist back when mom was, you know, younger and may have gotten a life insurance policy where the the. Policy can have living benefits. Some policies now have living benefits where you can use tax free dollars to pay for long term care. Wow, that's really great. So we've covered that before in the show. And so, you know, getting close to the wrap up here segment, I will say that this 2023 event. Goodbye. Good riddance. So long. Never want to see again 2022 going into 2023. Take a deep breath. Let the rain come through. Wash away all the cancer right now is a time I'm going to level set on my financial situation and start asking all the questions that I need to do. What don't I know? What should I know? How do I get some level of certainty? Folks, you cannot get if you're living in the invest like an average Joe reality. What is the invest like an average Joe It is, yeah. I have the 41k, maybe have a Roth do index funds and you know, maybe do a bit of speculation, have an ACORN. Right. Have an ACORN account. So that's investing like an average Joe. If you are doing any of that, chances are very high.

Merrit Strunk:
You've experienced somewhere close to a 20% loss. So if you're tired of investing like an average Joe and you're ready to invest, then let's get you the help you need it. It doesn't cost you or anything, and there's no obligation. You can call us at 858 521 9700 or look up retirement unbroken dot com and get in contact with us. I'll leave you with this thought as we wrap up here. You are responsible for making sure that your future is one of your choosing. We covered that at the very beginning here, but to get there with any degree of certainty, you have to take action, ask the right questions and get the help you need. Like I said, Tiger Woods has got a swing coach. You would think if anybody did need to do that, he would so get the help you need do those things and you are responsible. No one's coming to help you except for you. So I want to leave you with that thought. And and the answer is give us a call. 858 521 9700. This is Merrit Strunk. I'm the author of Retirement Unbroken Book, Find on Amazon, and also the host of the Retirement Unbroken Show, radio show and podcast. We'll look forward to talking to you next time. Have a great day.

Producer:
Thanks for listening to Retirement Unbroken. You deserve to work with an experienced and licensed expert who will strategically work to protect and grow your hard-earned assets to schedule your complimentary no-obligation consultation with merit. Visit RetirementUnbroken.com Or pick up the phone and call 858 521 9700.

Producer:
Advisory services are offered through Momentum Financial and Insurance Services LLC. An investment advisor in the State of California. Insurance products and services are offered through Merit Strunk an independent agent. California License number 0L7510 Certified Financial Fiduciary is a FINRA recognized professional certification.

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