Ep 50: Can You Get An A+ On Our Retirement Planning Quiz?

On This Episode

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.

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More Episodes

Check out all the episodes by clicking here.

 

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.

Here is a transcript of today’s episode:

 

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.

Ep 33: Fact Or Fiction

On This Episode

Sometimes the easiest way to learn about something is make it really simple. Like some of the first true/false tests you might have taken in school, let’s play a round of fact or fiction to test your financial planning acuity.

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More Episodes

Check out all the episodes by clicking here.

 

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.

Here is a transcript of today’s episode:

 

Marc: Hey everybody. Welcome into this edition of the podcast. Thanks for hanging out with us here on retirement planning, redefined with John and Nick, financial advisors at PFG Private Wealth. Find them online at pfgprivatewealth.com, that’s pfgprivatewealth.com. Fun podcast this week, we’re going to have a little fun with some financial fact or fiction and test our financial planning acuity with the guys in just a minute, but let’s say, hey and see what’s going on. John, how are you my friend?


John: I’m doing good. How are you?

Marc: Doing pretty good hanging out and doing well hope you guys are doing the same down there. Nick, what’s going on with you? Any new action on that attorney you guys were telling us about?

Nick: No, we’re still plugging away on the golf tournament. We’re looking forward to doing that. This the first time that John and I have been involved in putting together a golf tournament. We’re not big golfers, it’s definitely an interesting process, but we’re looking forward to… I think our two charities are going to be locally Pepin Academies and Southeastern Guide Dogs. We’re looking forward to raising some money for charity. And then, we also actually recently sponsored a run through the Herald Center, which is a part of the USF Tampa campus and through the college of public health, that’s done to support in studies, family violence, which is a huge issue really in any community. They have a run coming up and we’re sponsoring that. Anybody that’s involved locally with that, we’ll see the name of the podcast and those sorts of things. We always stay involved in the community, enjoy doing those things.

Marc: That’s great.

John: But we are definitely not running.

Marc: You’re not running. Are you going to golf?

John: We’re probably not golfing either.

Nick: [crosstalk 00:01:47].

Marc: I imagine planning a tourney, a golf tournament, is a bit more challenging than you might expect. You first dive into it. You think, oh, this is… And then you’re like, wow, this is a lot more work than I thought.

John: There are a lot of moving parts, but we have a really strong team. We have some members that have planned golf tournaments before and they’re heading up the logistics. Nick and I are very organized and detail oriented, we’re making sure all the tasks are checked off and everyone’s doing their work, but we’re really excited about that one.

Marc: Dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s.

Nick: The local steakhouse that we’re teaming up with is really well known. Having them involved, this is the first time that we had paired up with them. It’s a pretty cool experience as well.

Marc: Very cool. Well, I’ll keep asking about it and we’ll keep updating things as we get closer, but for now let’s play a little financial fact or fiction. I know it’s a little tougher sometimes in your guys’ industry, because often I’ve heard that saying that the answer to most financial questions are, it depends, but we’ll try to do as best we can here. Like when we were in school, we do true or false of simple ways to learn things. I’ve got some basic statements here guys, just have a little fun with it. Fact or fiction, give us the best answer you can, based on the way the question is worded and we’ll go from there. Fact or fiction, whoever wants to take this first one, your social security can be taxable.

John: I’m going to say fact, although sometimes it’s not, but it’s based off of your income in retirement. They called it, your modified adjusted gross income in this situation, where basically it’s half of your social security, your adjusted gross income, plus any non taxable interest like municipal bonds. They add all that up and depending on where that falls will determine how much of your social security is taxable. Example if you’re making married filing jointly over 44 000 of that [inaudible 00:03:46] income, up to 85% of your social security is going to be taxable. That’s the maximum amount of your social security that’s going to be taxable is up to 85%.

Marc: Okay. It can be taxable. It doesn’t mean it always will be, but it can be.

John: Correct. I’ll say more often than not, it is going to be taxable because the limits where it’s not taxable, it’s married filing jointly between zero and 32 000, 0% is taxable at that point. But you’ll find the majority of people, they’re above that when you’re talking two incomes.

Marc: Got you. Okay. All right. We’ll go with fact on that one, it can be taxable. Quick and easy fact or fiction. Nick, how about you, you want to take this one? Your taxes will likely be lower in retirement.

Nick: There is a decent chance that may be the case, the tricky part about that, and we usually have a better idea of that within the last couple of years of retirement, when we can measure your expenses and measure what is being deployed into savings and those sorts of things. I would say that a solid percentage of people do have lower taxes, at least initially in retirement. But one of the things that we’ve started to see is, especially those that have done a good job of maybe managing expenses, because the market has taken such a big jump over the last, five to 10 years, there’s a lot of people that have found themselves with a lot more money in retirement accounts than they expected. And they’re creeping into their RMD age, which is now 72, they’re going to have income that’s going to be coming in via their required minimum distribution that may be much higher than their spending that could really flatten out that difference. going back to what we’ve said in previous podcasts, there is a decent chance that your taxes will be lower in retirement. However, it’s important for us to plan for scenarios that they aren’t and give you options in retirement.

Marc: Yeah. And to be fair with continuing taxes possibly going to be on the rise with all the spending we’re doing, it’s one of those statements where again, it’s in the wording, likely to be lower. Okay. But there’s a good chance of anything happening in that arena. You always want to make sure you’re checking them as relates to your specific scenario and plan efficiently. Try to plan to be as efficient as possible so that you can be tax efficient, hopefully in the future, just in case they do go up, because they do raise up the tax brackets. All right. How about fact or fiction guys? Term life insurance is better than whole life insurance.

John: I’m going to have to say it’s a, it depends on this one. I can’t go fact or fiction on this one because it depends on your situation. Term-life is great for covering an immediate need. Example, having two kids, I’ve enough life insurance, death benefit to cover my income for the next 20 years, if something were to happen to me. Whole life is nice to have basically a permanent policy. Going into retirement, I have something that’s going to last, in essence, depending on the policy and disclosures, whatever and disclaimers it’s going to last forever. This one is, it can’t be fact or fiction, it really depends on the person’s situation.

Nick:
One of the things I would just throw in there on this is that, life insurance can be a topic that people feel strongly about. Typically though, it breaks down to a cashflow issue where if you have the cashflow to be able to have the right type of permanent whole life insurance, oftentimes it can be a better plan and strategy than otherwise, but it’s definitely an in-depth and a topic that’s important to go through in detail.

Marc: Well, we’re having a little fun with these, but like any financial vehicle or product there’s pros and cons to everything and what’s going to be right for your scenario may be different for someone else. It’s all about that complete holistic strategy, if you will. And that’s why working with an advisor is a good idea to do so when it comes to your scenario. And of course, if you’ve got questions or you need some help or whatever the case might be as always check out John and Nick, and have a conversation with them if you need some help, or if you have something that sparks your interest a little bit, go to pfgprivatewealth.com, that’s pfgprivatewealth.com, and you can drop them a line there while you’re on the website. Lot of good tools, tips, and resources. Here’s another one guys. Medicare will cover most of your medical needs in retirement, fact or fiction?

John: I’ll say fact that the right type of Medicare policy will cover most of your medical needs in retirement. Again, disclosure, everyone’s situation is different and Medicare only covers certain things. But I’ll say from your basic health needs, going to the doctor, prescriptions, if you have the right type of Medicare policy, it will cover quite a bit of that. As far as any disabilities, that’s where Medicare does not really kick in for that. A lot of people get confused.

Marc: Hospital stays, basic doctor visits, things like that. But it doesn’t do dental. I can be interesting. My mom had, with her Medicare, she had some cataract stuff done and it covered portions of it. There’s definitely some outliers there, which is why they’ve got the 47 million supplement programs that go in there. A lot of stuff to talk about for sure and it doesn’t do anything with long-term care.

John: Correct. It’s important just to understand what it covers. Both Nick and I, we know a good amount about it, but we’ve both gone to some seminars and presentations and make sure we’re up to date on the latest. But we typically, when it comes to that point in the planning, we refer this out to a couple of people that specialize in it because there’s so many different policies of so many different nuances. And again, it’s all about finding the right professional and what fits your needs. Fact, some of the time, fiction some of the time as well.

Marc: Yeah, exactly. Well, I guess with these, it’s really just a fun way to do it, but ideally when it comes to financial stuff, there’s always a depends caveat, if you will. One more here, we’ll have this last one, then we’ll take an email question to wrap up this week. As you get older, you should gradually shift from stocks to bonds. That’s been a thinking for a very long time fact or fiction, or maybe has that changed?

Nick: I would say that it obviously depends upon where you’re starting from. If you’ve been a typical investor that has been comfortable with market risk throughout your life and you are starting from a place of maybe having a 70/30 stock to bond or a 60/40 stock bond portfolio that shifting to decrease your risk does make some sense. We’ve seen plenty of people that haven’t really taken enough risk from the perspective of market risk. Not taking enough market risk, can create things like longevity risk and your money lasting for you, those sorts of things. If you’re going to make shifts, it’s important to be shifting in the right way. Making sure that you’re looking at stocks that are on the lower risk side of things is important. But I would say in general, the key is to tie your investments to your overall financial plan. But in general, it will make some sense for many people to reduce some of their stock holding risk as things go forward. With the caveat that when you’re getting your access to the fixed side of things, the bond world, you need to do it much more carefully than maybe you had to 10 or 15 years ago. It’s a much more convoluted space than it was. And so that’s something where there are many people that under-appreciate the risk that you can have in the bond space.

Marc: All right. Well, that’s going to do it for fact or fiction, and we’re going to wrap up this podcast with an email question again, if you’d like to submit your own, stop by the website at pfgprivatewealth.com, that’s pfgprivatewealth.com. Greg’s got a question for you. Greg says, “Guys, I’m being offered an early retirement package from the company I worked at. It also includes a severance package and pension buyout. It seems wise to consider this anything to think?” Anything that he should be thinking about, questions to maybe ask?

Nick: Yeah. Good question, Greg. Nick and I are seeing quite a bit of this coming up where clients are near retirement, few years away, and all of a sudden it’s, hey, I got the severance package and this pension buyout, what should I do? And the first thing we do is really to say, “Hey, let’s run the numbers and the plan and see if you can retire with that severance package and what the pension buyout is.” And we’ll evaluate it and give our recommendations based on, again, the plan. I’ll say it’s definitely worth comparing your options in that situation. One thing you want to consider is the financial health of the pension itself. Is it fully funded or is it underfunded? Because we have seen some pensions that aren’t fully funded and there’s some financial risks of that pension. In that scenario, I would say you might want to go ahead and take the money.

Nick: And then, reverting back to the plan, what are their current income needs versus liquidity? Just to give you an example of a plan we’re doing, client had a couple of pensions and didn’t really have much liquidity. When a situation like this came up, we evaluated it based on the income that it was spinning off and what a lump sum could do. But, we looked at it and said, “Hey, this, this could be a nice option to give you some of the liquidity, which you currently don’t have”, because he had two pensions and social security, but didn’t have a lot of liquid assets he could draw on if needed. Another thing to consider is beneficiaries. We’ve seen a lot of clients where they say, “Something happens to me with this pension, basically the money goes away. I don’t feel comfortable with that. I’d prefer the lump sum buyout. At least if something happens to me within the next 10 years or 15 years, someone’s going to get something versus in the pension option that I’m given, they’re not going to get anything.” And again, there’s different pension options and we review it all. And then, we’ve seen some scenarios where the pension guaranteed income was so excellent, we didn’t even consider a lump sum withdrawal or any other type of contracts that provide guaranteed income because it was so strong.

Marc: Some good questions to ponder there, Greg. Thanks for submitting that in. There’s obviously a lot of information that you didn’t share with us. If you’d like to have a more in-depth conversation about exactly what they’re offering, you definitely reach out to John and Nick. You can call them at 813-286-7776, but that gives you four or five things there to think about. Again, 813-286-7776. You can give them a call and have a conversation with them. Of course, with the podcast, subscribe to the show folks, if you have done so already. That way you can catch up new episodes when they come out, you can also check out past episodes and all that good jazz. You can find it all at pfgprivatewealth.com. It’s really the easiest way to get in touch with the guys, If you’d like.

Marc: You can drop an email question, you can book some time with them. You can subscribe to the podcast, just a lot of good tools, tips, and resources there at pfgprivatewealth.com. That’s pfgprivatewealth.com and that’s going to do it for us this week on the podcast. John, Nick, guys thanks for hanging out with me and good luck with the upcoming events.

Nick: All right, thanks Marc.

John: Thanks, have a good one.

Marc: We appreciate it. We’ll see you next time here on retirement planning, redefined with the guys from PFG Private Wealth, serving you here in the Tampa Bay area. We’ll talk to you next time on the podcast folks.