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A lot happened in 2025… Big political swings, stubborn inflation, new tax rules, and even a historic government shutdown. But what actually matters for your financial life? Today, we’re breaking down the year’s biggest headlines and what they may mean for your plan moving forward.
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Disclaimer: PFG Private Wealth Management, LLC is an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. 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. The topics and information discussed during this podcast are not intended to provide tax or legal advice. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Insurance products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed insurance agents.
Marc:
A lot happened in 2025, big political swings, stubborn inflation, new tax rules, and a historic government shutdown. But we’re going to talk today about the biggest headlines and what they actually mean moving forward, if at all. So, stick around, and let’s get into this conversation here on Retirement Planning Redefined.
Everybody, welcome into the podcast with John and Nick and myself here to talk investing finance and retirement, and a little year-end review going on this week here on the podcast, guys. A lot happened this year, so a lot to break down, but we’ll jump in and say hey to the guys. And congratulations, Nick, on being a married fellow this time around.
Nick:
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Marc:
Yeah, everything go smoothly?
Nick:
Yep, everything went smooth. We had a little rain scare, which doesn’t usually happen too much this time of year, but it all worked out.
Marc:
Nice. Very nice. John, did he behave himself? Was he good?
John:
He was good. I pulled up to the venue. He looked very relaxed in shorts and a t-shirt and I was all decked out and there was a problem with the situation here. He was very chill and I was dressed up way too early.
Marc:
Nice.
John:
So, no, he was excellent. He was very happy and it was a good day all around.
Marc:
Awesome. Well, very cool. Congratulations to you again, and the misses. And then with that, let’s jump in and roll back the clock a little bit, guys, to April of 2025. Here we’ll start there with the Liberation Day, right? So, the market didn’t like it at first. So, let’s talk about that.
Nick:
Yeah. So, this is all kind of in reference to when the main tariffs were announced earlier this year. And really, kind of the thought process is to kind of look back and in retrospect in a somewhat recent time, look back and see things that may have freaked people out over the past year when it was kind of an acute situation, and then kind of the short-term results and then slightly longer term result. And so, when the tariffs were announced, there was massive drawdowns in the market. There was really a substantial pullback. There was dealing with inflation, market volatility, etc.
And in retrospect, looking back over this year itself, as we approached the end of the year, from a market perspective, ended up being a very positive year. And then when you look at it from the point in time at which we kind of bottomed out after the tariff news and there was a substantial drawdown, there was really a big run-up. So, it’s just kind of the perspective of what went down and how it happened is interesting to look back on.
Marc:
Well, John, if you think about it, right, much like the COVID response, it was very much a V, right? So, it was a lot of sky is falling, doom and gloom, down 20% some indices, but then what, by May or June at the latest, it was back.
John:
Yeah, it’s a little bit of a kind of yo-yo type thing. I remember that month it was down, kind of some potential news came out that happened wasn’t real news, kind of came up a little bit and then went back down. And ultimately, the big takeaway as you compare it to COVID is stay of the course. We harp on having the plan in place and that goes on top of your investment plan. So, if you have a specific allocation, if you’re moderate, aggressive, conservative, income based, whatever it might be, you really want to not panic when things like this happen because ultimately, especially with media nowadays, there’s a lot of knee-jerk reactions. So, I think a big takeaway from this is stay the course, don’t panic, just trust in your plan if you’ve actually taken those steps to do a comprehensive plan for overall planning and also investment planning.
Marc:
And granted, it’s understandable when some things are happening that maybe are a little bit outside the norm to be worried. And talking with advisors across the country, if you had clients here and there that were concerned about it, but to your point, yeah, if you had a good strategy in place, it’s like, look, this is just another set of headlines that every year it’s kind of something, right? And so, kind of thinking about that as we’re moving through the year again on this year in review, the Fed chair and the White House stayed in a tit for tat match about rates. And so, Nick, you mentioned inflation. Well, it kind of persisted on through 2025.
Nick:
Yeah, that is something, it’s interesting to see, and I think your typical consumer gets… It’s pretty confusing to sift through inflation data because it is looking at it kind of like year over year typically. And then, there’s different messaging that you get from the government, administrations, etc. But I would say that as we have gone through plans, updated expenses with clients, probably the number one topic that has been discussed and the main pressure point for people has been inflation, both this year, the previous couple of years as well. And not only on “smaller” items like groceries, which, and when I say smaller, I mean from a dollar perspective, how much a one item of a grocery cost, whether it’s milk, ground beef. We had the egg drama earlier this year where eggs went out of control and my now wife eats a lot of eggs, and all these different things.
But not only that, but the kind of the persistent inflation that has happened with larger items such as cars and the cost of cars now, and just kind of how prices have run up on homes and really kind of locked a lot of people out of the housing market in a lot of different parts of the country. It’s really kind of hitting people from all angles, and unless something changes soon, it’s going to be kind of a new normal for people moving forward.
Marc:
Yeah, it’s been rough. I mean, certainly, and it stayed very persistent. And again, they were kind of going back and forth about what was going to happen with some of that. But John, I guess the upside to that is that high yield savings accounts sort of stayed strong throughout the year because they weren’t willing to lower the rates until we get to the end of the year.
John:
Yeah. So, this is benefiting that clientele or person that has a decent amount in emergency savings or has some cash on hand, where a few years back, it’s like you’d be lucky to get 1%. You’re having conversations that, “What are you getting in your high yield savings?” It’s like, “One and a half,” and you’re getting excited for that. Now, last year we were in kind of the mid-fours in this kind of high-yield savings, and now it’s kind of creeped down to mid-threes to high fours, if you can find something, I’m sorry, mid-threes to low-fours, depending where you are. So, it’s definitely getting a little more bank for your buck in your savings accounts, which is helping out some retirees that have some cash on hand.
And then, alternatively to that is that when we’re building portfolios for clients, we are using some high-yield savings as a bond alternative. Now, not the whole piece of it, but we are maybe taking a piece of, let’s say, fixed income if it’s 50% of the portfolio, maybe we’re taking 10, 20% and doing high-yield savings because it’s a little bit less volatile than the bond market.
Marc:
Gotcha. So it’s still safe, but still productive, or at least a little bit more productive than it had been. Yeah.
John:
Yeah. Just diversifying within that asset class itself.
Marc:
Gotcha.
John:
So, if you’re not taking advantage of this, I would highly recommend talking to your advisor about, “Hey, I got some cash on hand sitting in a checking account.” I don’t want to call out some banks, but some banks are still giving you not much if you don’t look at what you’re doing. So, important to take a look at how much you have in emergency savings and could you be getting an additional 3%? And that money starts to add up, especially when we talk about the higher cost inflation items like groceries, in Florida here insurance is crazy. So, any bit counts.
Marc:
Okay. Well, as we’re moving along through the year, we’re trucking along, we get to probably the biggest news of the year, maybe, maybe not. We’ll see. But the One Big Beautiful Bill, the OBBBA, right, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July. Nick, kind of the biggie, the big takeaway was we got to stay in the same tax brackets, which is very good for the next at least a few years anyway.
Nick:
There’s definitely a lot of provisions. It is really interesting because this year, and we’re almost at the end of it here, it almost feels like each quarter of this past year has felt like a year mentally where there was kind of the things that ran up with the optimism in the market, then tariffs brought the market down. Then we kind of had the slowdown. Then the Big Beautiful Bill kicks in mid-year, that helps to move markets up. And then, as we’ve been talking about savings accounts and things like that, it’s been an interesting thing because you’ve got people that, excuse me, were really enjoying the five plus percent, especially because they remembered just a few years ago, as you guys talked about, sub one, sub two. But now as we start to trend down, the push, and really it’s kind of exacerbated by the bill, is really focused on growth.
So with growth, lower taxes, investment, and those yields are going to start to come down again. So, it’s a tricky time for people because they’re looking at rates dropping, market looks soft with things like employment, stuff like that. At the same time, the government’s doing a lot of things to try to prop up the market. And the feedback that we’re getting from people is that it’s a very confusing time and what’s going on. So, with the Big Beautiful Bill, as you mentioned, the tax change, obviously one of the biggest things for a lot of our clients that are in retirement or approaching retirement is the additional deduction in social security income. And how that works is it was marketed as a tax-free social security, but the reality is for a single filer with modified adjusted gross income under $75,000, they can get a credit of up to $6,000, and married filing jointly, $6,000 each for married filing jointly with income under $150,000.
So, one of the angles and one of the things that some clients have done is like, “Hey, I have this extra deduction,” potentially looking at things like Roth conversions to offset that, but take advantage of being able to turn money into tax-free upside, stuff like that is important. So, as we sift through the One Big Beautiful Bill, it is providing additional strategies from an advisor perspective, from an attorney perspective when clients are working with attorneys to try to take advantage of the things that are happening from that.
Marc:
Yeah. And being effective there definitely for sure because it’s probably short-lived, right, and let’s be honest, the political wins, the way they’re doing things and everybody wants to kind of undo the previous person’s stuff, they could be short-lived, ’28 and ’29 maybe max. So, be efficient where you can be, especially for seniors, John, with some of those extra provisions.
John:
Yeah, yeah. Like Nick mentioned, that’s the biggest one we’ve seen clients kind of, their impact is how do they take advantage of it? So, one thing we’ve been doing is monitoring income distributions from what accounts. So, we’ve been cautious of where are we taking money out to try to continue to receive those deductions, whether single or married filing jointly. And something we do for clients is Roth conversions, which now requires a little more detail of how much are you going to convert? Before, the main thought was, let’s try to keep you within the same tax bracket and not go above in the next tax bracket to basically minimize what we’re paying in the Roth conversions. Now, it’s a matter of let’s keep you in the same tax bracket and let’s make sure you still qualify for this new deduction. So, it requires a little more planning on our end, but ultimately it’s a nice benefit for anyone above the age of 65.
Marc:
There you go. Exactly. So, again, as always, if you need help with that stuff, make sure you’re talking with your financial professional or reach out to John and Nick at PFG Private Wealth. Obviously, there’s a lot of nuance to it. So, we’ll round out the year guys here. We’ll wind it down with the last big event. At least we have two weeks to go in the year, hopefully nothing else happens at the time we’re taking this.
John:
What do we got? 14 days left?
Marc:
14 days left at the time of tape for this, right? So, the record-breaking 43-day shutdown. Now look, I don’t want to make light of the fact that people who are directly affected by this and a lot of federal employees and stuff certainly gets rough. But my take from this is that a lot of things don’t seem to care anymore. They’ve made this such the norm, not maybe necessarily the length of this, but the constant shutdowns that the market, for example, did not care, right? So, it just kind of shrugged it off. As a matter of fact, we set the all new highs on most of the indices during this, right? 6,900 and some change on the S&P.
So, what’s your take on it and what do you guys kind of think about it? Nick, I’ll let you start. Obviously, again, if you’re a federal worker, obviously there’s things that impact you, but for the most part, it seemed like everybody else just kind of shrugs this off because it’s become the new norm, sadly.
Nick:
Yeah. It’s another kind of instance or example of headline grabbing news, and then trying to figure out how exactly it’s applicable to you.
Marc:
Political pokership theater, for sure.
Nick:
Yeah, for sure. If you’re somebody that wasn’t a federal employee, then probably the biggest impact that you had was being impacted if you were trying to travel. I can tell you that as we were getting ready for the wedding and things were getting close to with the shutdown still going on and the travel disruption that we were seeing, we started to have some concerns because we had a lot of people coming in from out of town. So, we were happy that it had gotten, personally, that it had gotten fixed from that perspective.
And then, some of the SNAP benefits that were talked about quite a bit where lower income people being negatively impacted and for important things such like food, especially with what we’ve been talking about with inflation and the cost of food going up so much, it was an emotional time for a lot of people. But here, we sit a few weeks past it shutting down and it starts to feel like it was a long time ago. So, it is-
Marc:
And they’re already talking about doing it again in February or March, right? So, it’s always something.
Nick:
… Yeah. Yeah, it’s a leverage point that the parties try to use to get what they want. I would say, from the perspective of, and going back between the One Big Beautiful Bill and everything else that was going on that we didn’t address was the change in subsidies for exchange on the health insurance market.
Marc:
Oh, yeah.
Nick:
And how these all tie together, because I would say that that is something that actually has a fairly significant impact on some of our clients. We’ve seen clients’ premiums doubling, clients that retired before 65 that have been paying maybe somewhere between $500 and $1,000 a month with subsidies, and those subsidies being removed, we’ve seen premium increases to two and possibly $3,000 a month, which has a pretty substantial and significant impact. So, that is something that I would be surprised, and I think a lot of people would be surprised if there isn’t some sort of solution at some point, but that is, I would say, probably the most substantial impact for a lot of people coming out of that.
Marc:
Yeah. And John, I would think another piece to think about from the shutdown at least, is I feel like tying this back to COVID a little bit, right, is people maybe realizing, okay, maybe I need to kind of have that emergency fund shored up. Whether you are actually affected with it by being a federal employee or not, I think people started to kind of feel like, “Well, hey, could this leach into something else?” I know a lot of first time seniors in my mom’s senior building were like, first time senior, excuse me, first time social security filers, they’re like, “Do we still get benefits?” Right? So, there’s a little confusion there.
John:
Yeah, and I think going back to planning, one of the big things we do is making sure people do have an emergency fund to weather any storm that comes aware, to be flexible to adapt.
Marc:
Right.
John:
So whether it’s your own, your own career, your own job, and it’s just, yeah, exactly. It’s whatever field you’re in, whether it’s a loss of a job or layoffs, which we’ve unfortunately heard quite a bit this year of some companies laying some people off, you want to have that emergency fund to be able to pull on. Or, again, we talked back about on the tariff day there, Liberation Day. If you add some cash savings and the market dipped, it’s nice to have that cushion to pull on for that period of time. So, highly recommend having an emergency savings. Ultimately, it helps people think a little bit more clear when things happen, and it’s a nice kind of comfort level to have that.
Marc:
Yeah, that’s a great point, right? It just gives you a little bit of that buffer so you can make some more sound decisions. And of course, having a strategy and a plan will help you make some of those sound decisions as well. So as always, if you’ve got some questions, need some help, have that 15-minute chat with John and Nick and the team at PFG Private Wealth. Find them all online at pfgprivatewealth.com. That’s pffgprivatewealth.com. Get yourself some time onto the calendar. Yeah, it’s the end of the year, but go ahead and set up some time to talk with them in the beginning of the new year. Don’t keep procrastinating. Reach out, especially if you’ve got some concerns that you know you need to address.
And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you enjoy using. And we will see you next time here on Retirement Planning Redefined. For John and Nick, I’m your host, Mark. We’ll catch you later.
