Should you delay social security or take it as soon as possible? Are Roth conversion something that really makes sense or should you just ignore them? What happens if the market drops right after you retire? Could it have a major impact on your retirement? If you’re curious about the answers to any of these questions, then you are gonna be glad that you joined us for today’s show. I am Anthony Saccaro. Thank you for tuning into the Providence Financial Retirement Show, where it truly is all about the income. We are your retirement income source, and this is the place where retirees come for income. Every week on the Providence Financial Retirement Show, we generally take a topic and explore that topic and answer some of your listener questions along the way. But you guys have been busy. You’ve been writing in a lot of random questions about a lot of different things. So we’re gonna take our entire show today and we’re gonna answer your questions. It’s probably a good time to remind you that if you have a question for the show, all you need to do is make your way over to providencefinancialradio.com and you can ask us your question there and maybe we’ll get a chance to answer it in a future episode. Let’s start though by diving right into our first question, and this one comes from Daniel in Newport Beach and he wrote in this, I’m 64 and planning to retire sometime in the next year or so. I’ve got about $1.3 million saved mostly in stock funds. And while I’ve done well over time, I’m starting to get nervous about what happens if the market drops right after I retire. Everyone keeps telling me to just stay the course, but that feels a lot easier when you’re still working. How should I really be thinking about risk at this stage, Daniel, this is one of the most important questions that you can ask right before retiring. Lemme assure you that you are not alone. This is exactly the type of question that keeps a lot of people up at night, especially when there are a lot of moving parts that are going on in the world when you think about inflation and wars and everything else that you can point to today that has an effect on the economy and ultimately might have an effect on your retirement. So, great question, and I want to give you some things to think about. The first thing that I wanna note is that your question asked if you should stay the course because that’s what you are hearing. Well stay The course is another nice way of saying buy and hold, and that’s what Wall Street’s mantra is. Buy and hold. That’s what your brokers are gonna tell you. That’s what your friends are gonna tell you, and that’s what Wall Street wants you to do. The question though is buy and hold really the best strategy, especially before you’re about to retire. And before I answer that question though, I wanna point out a couple of things. First of all, most advisors, most brokers tell you to buy and hold pretty much no matter what. If you have a broker that’s told you to sell and get out and move back in, then you’re probably in an anomaly because most brokers, the standard saying in the standard piece of advice is buy and hold. That’s what they want you to do. But can you think of a situation. Any situation where the same advice applies to everybody all the time, well, that would be silly, right? Imagine going to a doctor and no matter what your condition was, whether you had a headache or you had a common cold, or the flu or broken arm, imagine that the doctor gave everyone the same prescription all the time. That just wouldn’t make sense. In the world of Wall Street, though buy and hold is advice given all the time and it doesn’t make sense for everybody all the time like they would have you believe. That also doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense at all for anybody because there are certainly times that it does make sense. If you have more than 10 years to retirement and you are dollar cost averaging and buying the same investments over and over again, you should buy them and you should plan to hold them, but hold them till when. Hold them forever and never sell them at all. Never make any changes. No, that’d be ridiculous. And most of the times when someone tells me that they’re just gonna continue buying and holding, it’s because that’s what they’ve always heard. And people don’t necessarily tend to believe what’s true. They tend to believe what gets repeated often, and by and hold, it’s repeated so often that everybody thinks it’s the right approach. But I really love your sincerity and your question because you don’t feel like it’s the right approach. You feel like you’re gonna retire and you feel like you’re taking too much risk, Daniel, and you’re questioning whether that really is the correct move to continue staying the course or to actually make some changes. I think it’s a really smart question. I’m glad you’ve taken time to. Before I move on and dive deep into answering your question, though, I want to acknowledge that if you were to continue buying and holding at this stage of life, it might be a mistake. And there are a lot of mistakes that I’ve seen retirees make over my career that they don’t even know they’re making. Why? Because these same mistakes get repeated over and over, and we tend to believe them just because they get repeated so often. And if you’re on the brink of retirement or you are already retired, you need to know what these mistakes are. We’ve put together a short but powerful animated video that talks about the most common mistakes that I’ve seen retirees make and how to avoid them. And if you’d like to learn what these mistakes are, just to make sure that you’re not making them accidentally, just because you’ve heard these mistakes over and over again and you believe that they’re really true, you’re gonna wanna watch this video, we’ll send it to you. Absolutely. If free of charge, you just have to go to our website to get it. And the website, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video. Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video. Leave us your information. We’ll get it right out, but it’ll show up in your inbox shortly and you’ll learn what these common mistakes are. Mistakes that many of you think are not mistakes, but actually are. To get your free animated video, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/video and give us your information. You will have that video in your email inbox soon. I’m Anthony Saccaro. Thank you for staying with us. You are listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. We’re taking our entire show today and we’re answering your question. So the show is always about you, but today the show is really about you, and we’re answering a question right now from Daniel who’s 64 years old and about to retire in the next year, and just kind of feels like maybe he’s taking a little too much risk, but everyone is telling him to stay the course, and he just wants to know if that’s really good advice or not. And we’ve already just covered the fact that staying the course is the same thing as buy and hold. And that’s the same advice that Wall Street gives to everybody all the time. If you’re 20 years old, it’s stay the course, buy and hold, don’t make any changes. And if you’re 70 years old, it’s stay the course and buy and hold and don’t make any changes. And to give everybody the same advice all the time is just really ridiculous. When is it then a good time to buy and hold. And when is it a good time to start thinking about making changes? Well, if you’ve got 10 or more years to retirement, meaning you’ve got at least 10 years until you’re retired, I think buy and holds a good strategy. Keep dollar cost averaging, keep buying the same investments over and over again. Don’t make changes. It’s good advice until you get to about the point where you’re 10 years away from retirement. Once you get to about 10 years away from retirement or so, what you need to start doing is you need to start shifting your portfolio away from growth and more towards focus on interest and dividends. Why? Because growth is unknown. You don’t know what the growth of your portfolio or what the growth of the stock market’s gonna be over the course of the next 10 years. And because of this unknown, you can’t count on it, but interest in dividends if you invest, right? Especially like we teach here on the Providence Financial Retirement Show, you’re gonna be able to count on them when you are invested for growth, it’s a guessing game. What is your mutual fund portfolio gonna be worth in 10 years? You have no idea. Now I know what some of you are thinking. You’re probably thinking, wait, Anthony, the market goes up all the time. Well, if I were to sit down with you and show you some charts going back 200 years, I can show you many 10 year time periods where the market has been just flat, no growth, drops, recoveries, volatility, but over a period of 10 years, no growth at all. That’s another thing that gets repeated so often that we tend to believe it. The market goes up all the time. You tend to believe that. What they don’t tell you though is that although the market does go up all the time, many times it’s recovering from a downfall. So if the market dropped by 20% and then it increases back to its normal level, yes, it’s going up, but you are going nowhere. The market has just been flat. Now, to be fair, there are many decade long time periods as well where the market does go straight up. And these long periods of time where the market goes straight up are usually followed by long periods of time where the market is just flat. And if you were to go back to the turn of the century to the year 2000, and you were to chart out from 2000 to 2026, what you would realize is that the first 13 years of this century, the market looked like a big W zero growth for the first 13 years, two crashes, two recoveries, no growth whatsoever. In the last 13 years, the market has done extremely well. And if these flat periods are followed by good periods, then history tells us that we might have another flat period coming. And if you’re planning on another decade of eight or 10% per year of growth and the market is flat, you might be sorely disappointed because your retirement plans might not work out the way that you anticipated. And that’s why I suggest that starting about 10 years out, you wanna start shifting your portfolio from growth to income because you can count on income, you can’t count on growth. And note the market doesn’t always go up. Back to your question then, Daniel, you’re only a year away from retirement, and if you are still invested like you were 10 and 15 and 20 years ago, then yes, it’s probably time to make a shift. And I think your gut feeling is exactly correct. I certainly hope I’ve helped given you something to think about, but thank you for taking the time to write in that question. If you’re the kind of person that would like to dig in a little more to market history and look at what the trends of the market have been over the last couple hundred years, realizing that this could actually help you kind of determine over the long run where the market might be headed. Well, you’re gonna wanna read chapter five of my new book, more Life Than Money, because I wrote extensively about those market trends, and it does give us a clue as to where the market might be going over the next 10 years. I’ll send you more life than money. Absolutely. If free of charge and it’s really easy to get, you just have to go to our website and ask for it. The website is providencefinancialradio.com/book. Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Leave us your information and we’ll get a brand new hardcover copy of More Life Than Money right out to you. To claim your free copy of More Life than Money, go to providencefinancialradio.com/book and we will get it right out. Thank you for hanging with us today. My name is Anthony Saccaro and you’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. We are your retirement income source and this is the place where retirees come for income. We’re taking our entire show today and we’re answering your questions. We’ve already answered a question about whether or not the buy and hold strategy works all the time for everybody or whether you should actually think about making some changes. We also have a question coming up about social security, but the next question that we’re gonna answer now has to do with Roth conversions, and it comes from Susan in Pasadena and she wrote in this, my husband and I are both 67 years old. Recently retired, and we haven’t started Social Security yet. We have about $900,000 in IES and a smaller brokerage account. Our CPA mentioned possibly doing Roth conversions, but we’re worried about paying a big tax bill. Now, how do we know if that’s actually the right move? Well, Susan, thank you for taking time to write in your question. And the first thing that I wanna say is, I’m really proud of your CPA, because most CPAs that I’ve run into, they don’t often recommend Roth conversions. And when you think about why that is, it’s because of what you’re suggesting and that is that you have to pay a big tax bill now, and why do you hire your CPA to help you pay more taxes or to help you save money in taxes? And because they’ve been trained to help you save money in taxes, a lot of them really don’t focus on Roth conversions because Roth conversions are gonna cause you to pay more taxes. Now, although there could be some long-term benefit down the road, just based on the fact that your CPA even brought it up to me, tells me You probably have a really good CPA. So I really appreciate that. Let’s define the core issue though. Based on your email, most of your money is in pre-tax accounts. You have about $900,000 in IRAs. This means that every dollar you take out is going to be taxable, and that means that retirement’s gonna be very expensive. How expensive? Well, if you’re in the 25% tax bracket, that means that you’re gonna need to take out 25% more than you need, so that by the time you pay the tax, you actually have the amount that you need to be able to cover your monthly bills. And I’m really glad that you included that. You haven’t started taking Social Security yet, because that’s gonna be a really important consideration in deciding whether or not to even do Roth conversions. And if you’re not familiar with whether Roth conversion is, lemme take a minute and just explain it so you know exactly what we’re talking about. If you have money in a pre-tax retirement account. The government allows you to take some of that money and transfer it to a Roth IRA, which is called a conversion. When you make the conversion, you’re taking money out of your traditional IRA that you’ve never paid tax on and you’re transferring it to a Roth IRA that’s gonna grow tax free here on out forever. And when you do the conversion, you have to pay the tax, and that’s the number one reason why many of you have probably decided not to do conversions. You have to pay the tax. Why would you do that? And that’s exactly the question that Susan wants to know the answer to. And let me give you the short answer and then we’ll expand on it. When you do a Roth conversion or you set up a Roth conversion strategy over time, what you’re really doing is you’re paying off the taxes that you owe the IRS, and you’re converting those dollars into tax free income. Tax free income. And I’ve also add tax free growth. When you put that money or you convert those dollars into a Roth IRA, you never have to pay tax on the growth and you never have to pay tax on any income that you get from that Roth IRA. And that’s very powerful because if you are in a situation where you have all your money tax free, well now you’re not subject to required minimum distributions. And now you don’t have to take out 25% more than you need because there are no taxes to pay. In Susan’s situation, all of her money is in these pre-tax retirement accounts, and that means that she’s gonna have to pay whatever her ordinary income tax rate is on all of her income that she takes out of those pre-tax retirement accounts because it’s all gonna be taxable income. And as much as I hate to say it, Susan, and you probably don’t want to hear this, this is usually the worst way to go into retirement. Retirement’s very expensive when every dollar you would draw is taxed. The most optimal situation that I see and what we often help our clients with here at Providence Financial is to have a tax diversification as well. And that means that you have some money in your pre-tax retirement accounts. You also have some Roth IRA, and you also have some taxable brokerage accounts as well. And when you have those three tax buckets of money, you have a lot of flexibility and a lot of control later in retirement. I am gonna guess that many of you are familiar with being diversified among your investments, but you also wanna be diversified among the taxability of the different investments as well too. Some in pre-tax, some in tax-free, and some in taxable. That’s optimal. And Susan, I’m gonna finish answering your question, but before we move on, I know that a lot of you are wondering the same thing. You probably have a lot of money in pre-tax retirement accounts, and should you do Roth conversions? That’s probably a question that a lot of you have. We’ve got a resource that I want to get in your hands. It’s an animated video that talks all about IRAs and Roth conversions and whether or not they make sense for you based on your situation. You’ll learn more specifically what they are, how they work, the pros and cons, and certainly this video’s going to give you some things to think about. I wanna send you this video absolutely free of charge. All you need to do to get it if you think it would help, is just go to our website and ask for it. It’s providencefinancialradio.com/video. Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video. Leave us your information and we’ll email that video right on over to you and you’ll just have to press play and you’ll be able to watch it. It’s really fun because it is animated and it’s pretty short. I think it’s only seven or eight minutes long, but it’s also very powerful. You’ll learn for yourself whether Roth conversions are something you should consider. Just go to providencefinancialradio.com/video and we will get it right out. I’m Anthony Saccaro. You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show, and we’re taking our entire show and we’re answering your questions. Presently, we’re answering a question from Susan who is asking about Roth conversions and whether it’s something that makes sense to do or not. We’ve already discussed the fact that tax diversification is also very important. Going into retirement with all of your money in pre-tax retirement accounts, that’s usually the worst way to go into retirement. It’s gonna make retirement very expensive. The better option would be to have some in pre-tax retirement accounts, some in Roth IRAs, and some in taxable accounts. That just gives you a lot of flexibility. Let me move on though, and give you some other things to think about when it comes to Roth IRA conversions. Things that you might want to consider in trying to decide whether or not it makes sense for you, because they certainly don’t make sense for everybody all the time. Remember earlier when I said that people tend to believe what is repeated, not necessarily what’s true. Well, it’s often been repeated about Roth conversions that you don’t want to do them because you’ve gotta pay the tax. Now, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true. It doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good advice, but we tend to wanna delay the pain as much as possible. And when you do Roth conversion, you are going to have to pay the tax now, and for many of you, that might be why you haven’t ever really taken it seriously, but what’s the alternative? Well, the alternative is to keep your money in pre-tax retirement accounts and then be forced by the government to start making withdrawals on the government’s timetable through required minimum distributions. And I know that many of you are actually underestimating what the ramifications could be of required minimum distributions. When you’re forced to take money out of your retirement account, you have to claim it as income, and of course that means you have to pay tax on it, but it may also push you into a higher tax bracket. It may cause more of your Medicare Part B premiums to be taxed. It may also cause you to have to pay tax on your social security income. So there’s a lot of negatives around required minimum distributions. And if you don’t do Roth conversions and you’re not proactive, then required minimum distributions are something that you’re gonna have to comply with. Otherwise, if you don’t, then you’re gonna have to pay a large penalty, 25%. That’s the penalty that the IRS will charge you if you miss a required minimum distribution. Required. Minimum distributions though, are only applicable to your pre-tax retirement accounts. They don’t apply to Roth ira. The reason is simple. With the pre-tax retirement accounts, you’ve never paid taxes, and the government doesn’t want you to just let it sit there forever. They want their tax dollars at some point, and that’s why they impose a required minimum distribution. But with the Roth, you’ve already paid the taxes. There’s no benefit for them to force you to start taking money out of your Roth IRA. So required minimum distributions go away, and that’s a big benefit of Roth IRAs that a lot of you’re underestimating. A common mistake that I see a lot of retirees make is that they try to do everything they can to save taxes this year without realizing what the tax consequences are gonna be over the rest of their life. And it’s always better to be proactive than reactive. And doing Roth conversions is a very proactive tax strategy. It’s a strategy that you’ll have to pay more taxes now, but you’ll get a lot of tax savings later. Oftentimes the best time to do Roth conversions is between the time you retire and the time that you start taking Social Security. Your income is a lot less. You don’t have your wage income anymore, and you’re not taking Social Security, which means your taxes are gonna be lower to begin with. And Susan, that’s exactly where you are right now. You haven’t started taking Social Security yet, but you’re already retired. The answer to your question then is yes, absolutely. I think your CPA is right, and you probably should start thinking about doing some Roth conversions with at least some part of your pre-tax retirement accounts. Hopefully that gives you something to think about, and maybe I’ve just shifted your perspective a little bit. Realize that your CPAI think is actually great in the advice that he’s given you, and talk to him further about what dollars and how much and when to do it. He can help you with all that. Thank you for taking the time, Susan, to write in that question. If you’re in the same situation as Susan and as many of you are with all of your money or a ton of your money in pre-tax retirement accounts, and maybe I’ve given you something to think about as well too, but you wanna learn more on my book, more Life than Money. I’ve written a lot about that. I’m willing to send you more life than money. Absolutely. If free of charge, and you can get it by going to providencefinancialradio.com/book. Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Leave us your information and we will get it right out. To get your free copy of more Life than Money, go to providencefinancialradio.com/book and you’ll have it show up on your doorstep in just a few days. I’m Anthony Saccaro. Thank you for joining us here on KNX AM 10 70. We’re taking this entire show and we’re answering your questions. The next question we have has to do with social security and whether or not you should take it early as possible or whether you should delay taking it. That’s where we’re gonna pick up right here on the Providence Financial Retirement Show. I. Thank you for staying locked into the Providence Financial Retirement Show where it truly is all about the income. I’m Anthony Saccaro. We are your retirement income source and this is the place where retirees come for income. Thank you for joining us today, wherever you might be. Really glad that you’re here and we’re answering your questions. The next question that we have has to do with Social Security, and it comes from Kevin and Thousand Oaks, and he wrote in I’m 66 and still working part-time, but I’m eligible for social security. I don’t necessarily need the income yet, but I also don’t wanna leave money on the table. Is there a clear reason to delay or should I just go ahead and start taking it? Well, Kevin, you’re not the only one with that question. I find that many listeners have the same exact question, so we’re gonna take some time to give you some things to think about, about whether you should take it now or whether you should wait. Kevin, you use the phrase leave money on the table, and that phrase is what drives a lot of conversation and a lot of decisions because social security isn’t about winning or losing. It’s not just as simple as getting your money back as fast as possible. Social security is just one piece of your retirement puzzle. And I find that a mistake that a lot of you’re making when it comes to social security is looking at it in isolation. But social security has to be looked at among the bigger picture, and there are questions and considerations that you need to think about before deciding to take social Security or not. The general idea though, is that the earlier you take it, the less you get, the smaller your benefit’s gonna be, right? And the longer you delay, the higher your guaranteed monthly income’s gonna be. Essentially there’s a trade off and you’re choosing. Do you take more money now for longer term, or do you lock in a higher amount of income later, but for shorter term? I will also add that the longer you live, the more valuable waiting usually is, regardless of whether you take it at 62 or whether you take it at 70. At about 80, you’re getting the same dollar amount, but if you live beyond 80 years old, you’re gonna get a much greater benefit if you were to wait until 70 years old. But there’s a lot more to it than that. It needs to align with your plan. If you need the income now, it makes your decision easy. You can’t wait even if you wanted to because you’ve gotta rely on that social security to pay the bills. But Kevin, in your situation, you said that you don’t need it now. So for you, it becomes more of a strategic decision. You didn’t mention what your marital status is, but if you’re single, then that’s gonna have a different impact than if you’re married. If you’re single and you’re not in great health and you doubt that you’ll make it to 80, then you probably wanna start taking it as soon as possible. But if you’re in great health and there’s no reason you couldn’t live to 90 or a hundred years old, then delaying it probably makes more sense. Mathematically, you’ll get more lifetime income if you were to wait for a few more years until you reach 70 years old. If you are married though, there’s a completely different dynamic that is oftentimes ignored when it comes to taking social security, and that is the survivor benefit. Simply stated, the survivor benefit says that when one spouse passes away, the survivor is going to keep the larger of the two social securities. If you happen to be the breadwinner, Kevin and your spouse is gonna step into your social security when you pass away, then waiting till 70 might make sense because your spouse will get a much larger benefit because you waited for three years. That’s a massive consideration, but I find that most people ignore it completely when deciding to file for Social Security. Ultimately, though I don’t want you to look at Social Security in isolation, it has to fit in with your income plan. It has to fit in with your tax strategy and your Mari status. And when you begin to look at social security as part of the bigger picture, oftentimes it changes the decision that you might have made if you’re just looking at it in isolation. Kevin, I certainly hope that helps. If you are in a situation though, where you’re not taking Social Security yet and you’re wondering the same thing as Kevin, should you take it now or should you wait? Well, we’ve created an animated video that talks just about social security. I won’t charge you for it. There’s no obligation. I just want you to have the information. If you’d like to get this animated video, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/video. Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video, and we’ll get it right out and you’ll be able to learn what you need to about Social Security so you can make the best decision for you and your family. Simply go to providencefinancialradio.com/video and you will have it show up in your inbox shortly. Thank you for taking time outta your day to join us. I’m your host, Anthony Saccaro, and you’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show, where it truly is all about the income. Our goal here on the Providence Financial Retirement Show is to give you the education and information you need so you can go into retirement or stay retired with the confidence and clarity that you deserve. It’s all about peace of mind, and peace of mind comes from having an understanding of. What the risks are and what you need to know to be able to stay retired successfully. Our entire show today is based on answering your questions. Our next question comes from Lisa and Carlsbad. She wrote in, my husband and I are both retired and we’ve been living off our dividends and occasionally selling shares when needed. Our advisor keeps telling us we’re fine because the portfolio’s average good returns, but I feel uneasy having to sell investments when the market is down. Is that just part of the process or is there a better way to structure this? Lisa, thank you for taking the time to write in that question, and I know that many of our listeners are wondering the same thing, especially because we’ve had such a volatile market. To start off the year, just recently, the stock market went into correction territory, which means that it was down by 10%. And if you are selling assets to get your income, then you probably have that same uneasy feeling that Lisa has, and rightfully so, because you have a double drain going on in your account. The market is down, your portfolio is down, that’s drain number one, and you’re withdrawing income at the same time. That’s drain number two. Something I’ve often referred to as a double drain. You mentioned in your question, Lisa, that you’re living off of dividends and selling shares when needed. And that’s a very common total return approach. The challenge though is that when you sell shares in a down market like we’ve had over the first few months of this year, you’re going to lock in those losses. You’re not just writing volatility, you’re actually realizing it, and every time you sell shares to do whatever it is you want to do, and the market is down, those shares are gone. They never have the chance to recover when the market actually recovers. You also mentioned, Lisa, that your advisor is focusing on average returns, and that’s a mistake that’s often very, very confusing. You would think that if the average return of the stock market is 10% over time, that as long as you’re taking out less than 10% a year, you’re gonna be okay. That’s not the way the math works though. Averages have a way of smoothing things out, and I can look you in the eye and I can say that over the history of the stock market, it’s average generally eight or 9%. And when you throw in dividends, it’s gonna be closer to 10% return, somewhere between nine and 10% a year. Depending on how you measure it, is what the stock market averages over time. But there are many years where the market has gone down by 10 or 15 or 20, or even 30 or 40%. And Lisa, if you’re making withdrawals from your portfolio and the market goes down by 30 or 40% this next year, what good does the average do for you? That doesn’t do any good at all. You’re gonna have to cannibalize a lot more of your principle because the market’s a lot lower than if the market was actually up or just even with where it is when you started making those withdrawals. If you have 20 or 30 years to go into retirement, you can rely on averages because you’re putting money in. But when you are making withdrawals from your portfolio, throw the averages out the window. They don’t mean anything. And I think this is what your gut is telling you, which is why you wrote in with the question, the fact that the market averages 10% a year or more over the long run means nothing to you. You took a loss of 20% in the shares that you had to sell. Here’s something else I want you to think about too. And that is, what if the market goes down two or three years in a row? It’s not like that hasn’t happened many times in the future. If you’re making withdrawals from your portfolio and the market’s going down one or two or three years in a row, it could have a significant impact on the rest of your retirement. Once again, because the shares that you are selling to live your retirement lifestyle, they never have a chance to recover. They’re gone. I find, however, that a lot of advisors hide behind averages because they sound good, but when you’re in retirement, they don’t mean a thing. And I think it’s a mistake to rely on averages when you are actually making withdrawals. So yeah, I think your advisor is making a mistake, and I think you’re wise to listen to your gut. And it’s not uncommon for advisors to say that because most advisors specialize in accumulation, they specialize in growth, they specialize in averages. They don’t specialize in retirement like we do here at Providence Financial. What’s the better way? We’ll answer that question in just a minute, but before we move on and answer that question, I wanna offer you a copy of my book, more Life Than Money, absolutely Free of charge, especially if this is starting to make sense. If you’re starting to understand why you can’t rely on averages when you are retired and there’s no cost, no obligation, we’ll just send it out to you free of charge so that you can get the education that you need. If you’d like to give more life than money. Simply go to our website, providencefinancialradio.com/book. Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Leave us your information, we’ll get it right out. It’ll show up on your doorstep soon. One more time. Go to providencefinancialradio.com/book to claim your free copy of more Life than Money, and you’ll have it shortly. My name is Anthony Saccaro. You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show, where it truly is all about the income. We are your retirement income source, and this is the place where retirees come for income. We’re taking the entire show, we’re answering your questions. We’ve already answered a question about Roth conversions, whether they make sense. We answered a question about social security and should you take it right away or should you wait until 70 to take it? And we also answered a question as well about whether you should think about shifting some of your portfolio and making some changes as you are getting closer to retirement. Right now though, we’re in the middle of answering a question from Lisa and lemme read the question again ’cause we started answering it, but let me just bring you up to speed just in case you did join us. The question she wrote in was this. My husband and I are both retired and we’ve been living off dividends and occasionally selling shares when needed. Our advisor keeps telling us we’re fine because the portfolio has average good returns, but I feel uneasy having to sell investments when the market is down. Is this just part of the process or is there a better way to structure this? We’ve already discussed some of the problems with the advice that Lisa received, so I want to talk about what the solution is. I believe in my heart of hearts that the solution is to focus on interest and dividends. The reason is because when you are living off of interest and dividends, volatility doesn’t matter. I didn’t say volatility goes away. I just said it doesn’t matter. Volatility becomes a really big deal. When you have to sell principle in order to get your income, if the market goes down 10 or 20 or 30%, you have to sell more principle. In order to get the income you need to maintain your retirement lifestyle. And if you keep selling income over and over year after year, eventually you could be in a position to have to worry about running outta money. And that’s the number one concern that retirees have today. And the only reason they have that concern is because they’re in a position of cannibalizing their principle, hoping that their principle continues to grow at a pace faster than the rate at which they’re cannibalizing it. And of course, when the market goes down, your principle’s not growing at all. As a matter of fact, it’s shrinking. You’re making withdrawals at the same time. That takes us back to that double drain that I talked about. Drain number one is the portfolios dropping in value. Drain number two is you’re having to cannibalize your principle at a lower price in order to maintain your lifestyle. It’s a double drain, and it’s the number one reason why many of you are actually afraid of running outta money before you run out of life. But if you live off of interest and dividends, if you focus on income the way we teach here on the Providence Financial Retirement Show, that goes away. What you need to understand is that interest and dividends are renewable resource. You can spend them and they will come back again next year. You can spend ’em again next year, and they will come back again the following year. And it doesn’t matter what the value of your portfolio is at any point in time. It could be up, it could be down. But if you’re not cannibalizing your principle. If you’re leaving your principal intact and living off your interest and dividends, then the volatility no longer matters. And that’s gonna give you the confidence to know that you have income that will last your lifetime, and you never have to worry about running outta money. That’s gonna give you peace of mind. And that’s what we teach here on the Providence Financial Retirement Show. And Lisa, to round out the answer to your question, you said that you’re living on some interest in dividends and you’re selling some principle whenever you need the extra cash. I’m gonna suggest that you restructure your portfolio so that all of your income is coming from interest in dividends. That’s going to solve your worry. Thank you for taking the time to write in that question. If you’re starting to realize that interest in dividends is probably the way to go when it gets to retirement, but you wanna learn more. Well, we’ve got a resource that you’re gonna want to get. It’s an animated video that talks about the case for fixed income. You’ll learn what you need to know about interests and dividends and how you can structure your life and your retirement and your portfolio to be able to live off of interests and dividends so you don’t ever have to worry about running outta money before you run out of life. I’ll send you this video free of charge. We’ll just email it to you, but you have to let us know you want it, and you can do that by going to providencefinancialradio.com/video. Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video. Leave us your email, address your information. We’ll get it right out. You’ll learn what you need to know about how to live off your interest and dividends and leave your principal alone. And I’ll also say it’s fun to watch because it is an animated video. To get your free video, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/video and you will have it in your inbox shortly. Thank you for being with us today, wherever you might be listening from. You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show, where it truly is all about the income. My name is Anthony Saccaro and we’re taking our entire show today and we’re answering your questions. And the next question that we have comes from Brian and Glendale, and he wrote in this, my wife and I have been meaning to get our estate plan done, but honestly we’ve been putting it off because it just feels really complicated. We don’t have a massive estate, maybe around $800,000, including our home. Do we really need a trust or is a will enough? Well, Brian, thank you for taking the time to write in the question, and you’re probably writing in because you know that in addition to owning Providence Financial, which is a retirement planning firm, I’m also an estate planning attorney. So we’re gonna shift our conversation from some of the financial questions that we’ve had to an estate planning question. And the gist of the question is, do we need a trust or do we need a will? And I might even throw in that Brian believes it’s also complicated. Let me address the complicated issue first, because a lot of attorneys want you to think it’s complicated because the more complicated something is, the more they can charge you. The truth is though that estate planning’s not complicated at all. I know you mentioned that in your question, Brian, and it’s much more inexpensive than a lot of you might be thinking. Let’s turn though and answer the question, and we need to talk about the difference between a trust and a will. I think that’s a good place to start, and if we start by talking about a will, what you need to know is that it doesn’t avoid probate, in my opinion, a proper estate plan, especially here in California, where my practice is located, really should be to avoid probate. Probate’s very expensive. It’s public. You’re gonna have to involve attorneys. It’s gonna take a lot of time. And there’s really no reason to have to go through probate at all. But probate is the default if you don’t do anything, and it’s also required if you have a will. A lot of people inaccurately think that if you have a will, you avoid probate. That’s not the case. A will just helps the court determine what to do after probate is done. On the other hand, when you set up a living trust, it avoids probate completely. If you have an $800,000 estate, it could very well cost you 25 or $50,000 to go through the probate process, but to set up a living trust might only cost you three or four or $5,000, just depending on how you want the trust to work. That’s why I say a trust is relatively inexpensive compared to what the cost of probate is gonna be. A common mistake that I often see people make though is they think that estate planning is only for your beneficiaries. And that’s actually not true at all. It is true that your beneficiaries are gonna benefit from your taking the time to do estate planning, but it’s not only when you’re gone, there are components of an estate plan that you need to have even while you’re alive. If you’re ever in a situation where you can’t make your own decisions because you are either in an accident or because maybe you got dementia or Alzheimer’s or something like that. Well, a good estate plan is gonna allow someone to come in and make those decisions for you. A will doesn’t do any of that. A will is only for when you’re gone. But a trust is a living document, and that’s often why they call it living trust. If it was only designed for when you’re gone, maybe they would call it a dying trust, but it’s not called a dying trust. It’s called a living trust. And that’s because there are a lot of benefits that you’re gonna get. When you are alive, it’s not just about when you’re gone, but the primary reason to do a living trust is to avoid the excess cost and hassle of probate. And Brian, I certainly hope that gives you the answer that you were looking for. Now, if you’re in a situation like Brian, and maybe you’ve never done any estate planning, maybe you’ve thought it’s complicated, maybe you’ve thought it’s too expensive or you just don’t need it because you don’t have a terribly sizable estate, and you’re starting to realize that you should actually learn more about it. I wanna offer you a complimentary copy of my book, more Life Than Money, because I designate an entire chapter just talking about estate planning, and I’ve done entire shows on it. I’ve done entire podcasts on it, and much more than just answering Brian’s question. There’s a lot that you need to know, and a good starting point would be to get a free copy of More Life than Money and read that chapter. I’ll send it to you absolutely free of charge. All you need to do is go to providencefinancialradio.com/book. Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Leave us your information. We’ll get a copy of More Life than Money right out to you. You’ll have it in a couple of days. Simply go to providencefinancialradio.com/book and we’ll get it right out. And I know one of the benefits you’re gonna get is learning how estate planning is actually gonna help you while you’re alive, not just when you’re gone. I know that’s what a lot of you’re thinking. providencefinancialradio.com/book. That’s where you need to go to get a free copy of more life than money. We’ve been answering your questions all show. We’ve answered a question about social security. We answered another question about should you start making changes to your portfolio as you approach retirement. We also answered a question about Roth conversions and now we just answered a question about a living trust versus a will. Thank you for joining us today, wherever you might have been. I’m Anthony Saccaro. You’ve been listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. Have a great week everyone. God bless.

PFR-Podcast-20260822_PainfulFinancialParallels-CV

If I told you that something you’re doing right now is gonna cause you real financial pain in 10 or 20 years, would you wanna know about it? Here’s the problem. Most people don’t feel the pain that they’re causing now until it’s way too late to change. Today, you’re going to learn about some of the financial decisions you’re making today that might hurt you down the road.

I’m Anthony Saccaro. Thank you for taking time out of your day to join us. We are your retirement income source, and you’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. Thank you for being here. Have you ever injured yourself where at the exact moment of the injury you just knew it was gonna be bad?

I did that just a couple of weeks ago. I was traveling in Connecticut, and I rented a convertible, and I was visiting four states in 10 days. So I had a big duffel bag with me that was pretty heavy, and it didn’t fit into the trunk, so I had to throw it over in the backseat. And when I showed up at the hotel, the second hotel I had been to on day number three, I needed to pull my duffel bag out of the backseat.

So I put my right arm under the duffel bag, I put my left arm on top of the duffel bag, and I went to muscle it out. And at the exact moment I did that, I heard a ripping, I heard a shred, and I felt the pain instantly in my bicep. Not fun. I’ve now had several doctor’s visits and an MRI, and it turns out that I ripped the tendon right off of the bone.

The only way to reattach it is through surgery, so in the next week or two, that’s what’s gonna be on my calendar. And it turns out I’m gonna be taking the next five or six weeks off of work. Well, not really, ’cause I’ve got great staff, and I’ll be able to do a lot of things from home. I just won’t be showing up to the office.

And no, if you’re wondering whether or not I’m gonna be foregoing this Providence Financial Retirement show, the answer is no. I’ll still be able to record, so you’ll still get the information and education that you deserve. This show is always on my mind. I record it to help you have the peace of mind and confidence you deserve in retirement, and my torn bicep has also been on my mind.

What’s interesting is, as I’ve been thinking about both of these things, I’ve realized that there’s just a lot of parallels, parallels to retirement planning and the actual pain that I’m going through. The first thing that jumped out at me as I was starting to think this through is that I know I’m in pain.

I know that something needs to be done. Unfortunately, though, when it comes to retirement planning, many people are making mistakes now that are not gonna show up for years or even decades to come. If you turn on Social Security at 62 years old, you’re gonna have potentially the next 30 years of dramatically reduced lifetime income.

If you’re a little younger and you’re contributing all your money to pre-tax retirement accounts because you want the tax savings this year, you’re building up a ticking tax time bomb for when you turn 73 years old and RMDs hit If you’re already retired and you’re living off your portfolio and you’re making withdrawals to get that cash you need to pay the bills every month, you could be putting yourself in a position to where in 10 or 20 years from now, you have to seriously worry about whether you’re gonna have enough money to survive the rest of your retirement.

Because I’ve been a retirement advisor for 27 years, I know that many of you are making decisions today that are gonna be very painful in a decade or two from now. The earlier you find out about them, the more time you have to prevent them. That’s one of the reasons that we put together a short animated video that I wanna give you.

When you watch this video, you’re gonna learn about the seven most common mistakes that many of you don’t even know that you’re making, along with how to avoid them. It’s only seven or eight minutes, so it’s short, and it’s fun to watch because it is animated, but it’s pretty powerful because you’ll learn the most common mistakes I’ve seen retirees and pre-retirees make, which will allow you to educate yourself about them before it’s too late.

I wanna send it to you free of charge, no cost, no obligation. We’ll just email it to you. You just have to go to our website to request it, and the website is providencefinancialradio.com/video. Again,

it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video. Leave us your information and you’ll get an email shortly and you’ll be able to watch this video. You’ll learn about the most common mistakes and what you need to do to make sure that that pain doesn’t show up later in life. To claim your free video, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/video and we’ll get it right out.

You’ll learn exactly what you need to do now so you can prevent that pain later when it’s too late. I’m Anthony Saccaro. Thank you for tuning in to today’s Providence Financial Retirement show. Thank you for choosing to spend some time with us today. If you just tuned in and you missed the very first part of the show, I shared with our listeners that just recently I tore my bicep right off the bone, and now it looks like I’m gonna have to have surgery.

And my bicep’s been painful, very painful, but as I’ve continued to think about it, I realize that there’s a lot of parallels between being in pain from an injury and retirement planning. The first parallel that we just drew is that I know I’m in pain. I know something needs to be done and in my situation, that means surgery.

In retirement planning, though, a lot of times the pain doesn’t show up until later. You may be doing things right now that are gonna cause you a lot of pain down the road. We already discussed what some of those were. Another parallel comes to mind, though, and that is that early intervention is always cheaper and faster and better than waiting for the actual crisis to occur When the doctor was telling me that I need to have surgery, of course, I was asking a lot of questions.

I’m an attorney, that’s what I do. And one of the questions I asked is, “What if I just don’t do it?” He then went on to explain that my bicep will shrivel up. I’ll probably lose 30 to 40% of my arm strength. I might not be able to golf because swinging a golf club directly is impacted by the way that this tendon is no longer in place.

He even went on to continue that there might always be some pain because the arm’s not gonna be the way that it should be. He went on to explain that the longer I wait to get this done, the more painful it’s going to be, and the more difficult the process. Apparently, the tendon could heal in place, and if that happens, they have to unroll it.

It has a potential of cracking and being damaged, and it turns out that they might even have to do some bone grafting. In my situation, that just makes it urgent. The tie back to retirement planning, though, is this: there are some things that you should be doing right now that you’re not doing. You just don’t realize that there’s urgency there.

If you wait too long, some of the decisions that you could have made today to prevent some of the pain down the road go away. There is a point in time where it becomes too late. That takes us to our first listener question of the day, which is right on target. It comes from Barbara in Irvine. She wrote in this: “I’m 75 years old, and I keep hearing about Roth conversions.

But isn’t it too late for me? Wouldn’t I just be paying taxes on money that I don’t have time to benefit from?” Barbara, really appreciate the question. I also appreciate that although you kind of feel like it’s too late, you still took time to reach out just to check. The short answer is this. No matter what age you are, there are always some things that you could do to better yourself in five or 10 or 15 years from now.

But you are 75 years old, and had you have started thinking about some of these things in your early 60s, yes, there were absolutely some things that you could have done that are not gonna be available to you now. When you do Roth conversions, which is your question, a lot of times it makes sense to do them over a period of years.

And if you start them at 60 years old, and you do conversions for 15 years, that’s definitely gonna put you in a better situation than if you start at 75 years old, for sure The answer then is it’s not too late to start something, but there was certainly a window of opportunity that was missed. Really appreciate you taking the time to write in that question, though.

A huge part of the problem when it comes to retirement is you don’t know what you don’t know, and you might be making mistakes today that you just don’t even realize that you’re making, mistakes that are gonna have a huge impact 10 or 15 or 20 years down the road. But you can’t avoid or prevent them if you don’t even know that they exist.

That’s one of the reasons why I wrote my book, More Life Than Money, to help you get the information you need to learn what the mistakes are and how to avoid them. I cover the 10 most common mistakes that I’ve seen retirees make in my career and what you need to do to avoid them. The first step is to learn what they are.

I’ll send you More Life Than Money absolutely free of charge, as long as you ask for it. You can do that by going to our website, which is providencefinancialradio.com/book. Again, that website’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. In a few days, More Life Than Money will show right up on your doorstep, brand-new hardcover copy.

You’ll be able to read it, get the information you need so you can learn what mistakes you might be making that you’re not even aware of. You’ll be setting yourself up for a really good retirement because you were smart enough to get the information in the first place. To get your free copy of More Life Than Money, go to providencefinancialradio.com/book and you’ll have it shortly

Thank you for continuing to hang with us today here on the Providence Financial Retirement Show. My name is Anthony Saccaro. Here at Providence Financial, we are your retirement income source, and this is the place where retirees come for income. Really glad that you’ve decided to be with us today. We’re having a good show because I’m paralleling the fact that I have to have bicep surgery to retirement planning.

And you might not think that those things are similar, but there are a lot of similarities, as you’ve already started to learn if you’ve been with us up to this point. With my situation, the doctor told me that it’s all or nothing. It’s either surgery or you just can’t do anything Turns out there’s a lot of negative short-term and long-term ramifications for not doing anything.

Of course, then that means that I’m gonna have the surgery coming up here pretty quickly. Not sure exactly when, but it’s on the docket. With my situation, there’s no middle ground. When it comes to retirement planning, though, I often find that many people don’t look at the middle ground. They think it’s either A or Z, and they forget about all the letters in between.

Oftentimes people think that they have to retire at 60 or 70, or spend down your portfolio aggressively, or you have to live like a pauper, or you have to buy an annuity that locks you in, or you take all the sequence of returns risk yourself. Many times when I talk to someone, it’s either/or, it’s black or white.

There’s no nuance. And many times that middle ground is not even considered. It’s an interesting dynamic, but I see it a lot. As a matter of fact, while I’m thinking about it, Robert wrote in with a question that proves this point perfectly. Robert’s from Carlsbad, and he wrote in this: “Anthony, I’m trying to figure out my Social Security strategy.

Should I take it at 62 or wait until 70? I can’t figure out which one makes the most sense for me.” Robert, thank you for taking the time to write in the question, and I hate to do this to you, but you’re kind of proving my point. You’re asking whether or not you should take Social Security at 62 or at 70.

Well, what about all the ages in between? Why did we skip over 63 and 64 and 65 and all the other years between 62 and 70 years old? Why is it either/or? We tend to think, though, in either/or. We’ve got to do it at 62 or 70. We’ve got to be aggressive or not. When it comes to retirement planning, very rarely is it all or nothing.

I might even be so bold to suggest that most retirement planning lives in that gray area. You make the best decisions you have today with the information that you have with the full idea that you’re gonna be adjusting over time. Stop thinking about the extremes and start thinking about a gradual process and timing that makes sense for you and your situation.

Although I used Robert’s question kind of to prove a point that he was looking at all or nothing when it comes to Social Security, either taking it at 62 or 70 and not looking at the middle ground, I actually feel obligated to answer the question too, because he did take time to write it in. Robert, let me give you a couple of things to think about Social Security is all designed to break even around 80 years old.

So whether you start at 62 or whether you start at 70 or somewhere in between, once you get to 80 years old, you will have received about the same amount of money. The math tells us though that the longer you live past 80, the more lifetime income you will have received the longer you wait. So if there’s no reason to think that you’re not gonna make it to 80 years old or beyond, then generally the longer you can wait, the better off you’ll be when it comes to lifetime income.

And I appreciate the time you took to ask your question, Robert I realize my answer was fairly short, and there’s a lot more that you need to know about Social Security, which is one of the reasons that we created a commission report, a primer, if you will, on Social Security and all the things that you should be thinking about before you ever file for benefits.

If you’re on the brink of filing for Social Security and it’s a thought that you’ve had, you wanna learn more, I wanna send you this commission report absolutely free of charge. You’ll learn everything you need to know about filing for Social Security, the dos, the don’ts, the pros, the cons, and that way you’ll be armed with the information to make a good decision for you.

I wanna send you this commission report absolutely free of charge. All you need to do to get it is go to providencefinancialradio.com/report. Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/report and we’ll get it right out. You’ll learn everything you need to know about filing for Social Security. One more time, to claim your free Social Security Commission report, go to providencefinancialradio.com/report.

We’ll email it to you shortly. Thank you for hanging out with us here for the Providence Financial Retirement Show. I’m Anthony Saccaro. We’re having an interesting show because I just found out that I need to have bicep surgery ’cause I tore my bicep, and as I’ve been dreading this upcoming surgery that I’m gonna have, I’ve really realized that there’s a lot of parallels between retirement planning and surgery.

We’re spending our time today kinda drawing out some of what those parallels are. We already uncovered the fact that I know I have pain, I know that I need to do the surgery, but many of you are doing things now that are going to negatively impact your retirement and create pain in retirement, and you’re not even aware of it.

That was a topic that we’ve already discussed and a parallel that we already drew. We drew another parallel in catching the problem early. The longer you wait to solve a problem, the more expensive and painful it becomes. That’s true when it comes to surgery, and it’s also true when it comes to retirement planning.

The last parallel that we’ve discussed is many people think it’s all or nothing, and in my surgery, it really is. Either I don’t do it or I have surgery. There’s not any middle ground. But when it comes to retirement planning, there’s a lot of middle ground. Very rarely is it all or nothing. That was an interesting parallel to talk about as well.

The next parallel that I wanna draw, I think it’s really important, and that is the parallel of making sure that you understand before you commit. As I was sitting there with the doctor with the MRI results in his hand, learning for the first time that surgery is apparently my only option, I had a ton of questions Everything from how long is the surgery gonna last?

Where are you going to cut? What’s the recovery time? And the most important question that I had is when will I be able to golf again? Unfortunately, that answer was probably about six months after the surgery. So not great But in the scheme of things, not the end of the world either. I also asked if there was anything he could do as part of the surgery process that would improve my golf game, and unfortunately, that fell flat as well.

So apparently I’m still just gonna be as bad of a golfer on the other side as I am now. I asked a ton of questions, though. I wanted to know everything, and if someone’s gonna cut into your body, that’s probably normal. Here’s the parallel to retirement, though. If you’re retired now, I bet you’re following rules and doing things that if I were to sit down and ask you why you’re doing that, you probably don’t have a good answer.

Not knowing exactly what you’re invested in is a good example of that. I ask people all the time why they own what they own, and they really don’t have an answer. Another good example is following the rule of 4%. Many of you have heard and are withdrawing 4% a year out of your account because that’s an age-old rule.

It doesn’t matter that it’s been debunked, it’s been questioned. You might not be familiar with that, but I know that many of you are following that rule, taking 4% a year out of your portfolio without ever having done the math or looked at the ramifications of what that could mean for you a decade or two down the road.

Your financial advisor said you could do it, so you’re doing it. My doctor said I need to have surgery. Why? What’s the middle ground? Are there any other alternatives? If there were 10 orthopedic surgeons sitting in front of me, Doc, just like you, would they all say I need to have surgery or would some of them have some creative ideas that might reduce the impact or the pain?

Is there different ways to do the surgery? These are all some of the questions that I asked and some of the questions that I think you want to ask of your retirement advisor, whoever your financial guy or gal is, to understand the method behind the madness. Why are they recommending what they’re recommending?

If you don’t know, that creates anxiety, and when things go wrong down the road, you wind up making decisions out of fear and panic, and no good decisions are made when you’re panicking. There may be some things that you’re doing right now that have potential to cause you pain down the road, and that’s what I wanna help you avoid.

That’s the reason, the only reason, that I wrote More Life Than Money, an Amazon number one best-selling book that talks about the most common mistakes I’ve seen retirees make over my quarter-century career, what you need to do to learn about them, and more importantly, to avoid them before it gets too late.

I wanna send you More Life Than Money free of charge. You have to claim it, though. To do that, go to providencefinancialradio.com/book Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Leave us your information and we will get a brand new hardcover copy of More Life Than Money right out to you. Go to providencefinancialradio.com/book and you will have it shortly

Welcome back. Thank you for spending some time with us here today on the Providence Financial Retirement Show. I’m Anthony Saccaro. We are your retirement income source, and this is the place where retirees come for income. Up to now, we’ve been contrasting and comparing and drawing some parallels between the fact that I have to have a bicep surgery coming up and retirement planning.

If you’ve been with us, you know that there’s a lot more parallels than you would initially think. And I have to admit, they’ve been quite interesting to take you through. The next parallel that I wanna draw between my upcoming surgery and retirement planning is this, and it’s a parallel that could either make you or save you a ton of money over your lifetime.

That parallel is getting a second opinion. You don’t know what you don’t know, and some of you are already thinking that you’re doing the absolute best thing. It might be something you’ve already done or always have done, or it might be something your advisor has told you to do. The problem is you don’t know what you don’t know It becomes even more scary when you don’t know anything about the topic that you need to know about for whatever situation you’re being faced with.

In my situation with my surgery, I don’t know anything about bicep surgery. I’m not a doctor. So when I listen to the doctor and he tells me I have to have surgery, I’m relying on his professional opinion. The challenge is he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. He’s been a doctor for a long time, six or seven years is what he had told me, and when I asked him how many of these surgeries he’s done, I didn’t really get a straight answer.

He kind of shrugged his shoulders. I kind of then suggested, “Are we talking about dozens? Are we talking about hundreds or thousands?” He kind of said hundreds, but does that really mean hundreds of bicep surgeries or hundreds of just kind of surgeries in general? Is he counting stitches as surgery? And six or eight years is a decent enough time.

I just wasn’t confident, though, in a lot of the answers he was giving me, and I decided to get a second opinion. I haven’t done that yet. That’s coming up. I knew what I was looking for, though. I was looking for a doctor who’s done it a lot more than six or seven years. I found a doctor who’s a solo practitioner that’s done, according to his assistant, hundreds or maybe thousands of surgery and has been doing it for 25 years.

And that’s the kind of doctor that I want. The doctor who I initially consulted with, the doctor that’s been doing it for six or eight years, he works with a large clinic. I really felt like I was just a number. And if he gets a better job offer before my surgery, he’s gone and there’ll be another doctor doing my surgery.

The doctor that I’ve decided to give me a second opinion, though, solo practitioner, owns the practice. I will actually be a name to that doctor. I haven’t had the second opinion yet, but I’m going to guess that he’s gonna give me several alternate ways, different things we can do, not necessarily to avoid the surgery, but to make it more palatable.

Maybe the cast can be shorter. Maybe it will even be a different kind of cast that will just give me a little more flexibility. I don’t know But that’s the point. I don’t know what I don’t know, so I’m getting a second opinion. When it comes to retirement planning, you don’t know what you don’t know. You may have had an advisor for 20 years.

You have a great relationship with that individual. But 20 years ago, you were 20 years younger, and you weren’t approaching retirement, and the rules change the closer you get to retirement, and especially in retirement. And simply getting a second opinion may save you a ton of money or may make you a ton of money over the course of the rest of your life.

But you’ll never know unless you get a second opinion. I’m gonna make an offer to you that I don’t make a lot, and that is I’m gonna give you a second opinion. To do that, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna run a retirement risk report. That allows us to do a full analysis of your situation to see where you are and compare that to where you want to be.

We won’t only just look at now at this point in time, but we’ll also look at some of the things that you might be doing today that will have a negative impact on you 10 or 20 years down the road. So it’s not just about today, it’s about the long-term strategic planning as well. And we’ll get that information when we run our retirement risk report.

It’s gonna be customized for you. It’s essentially gonna be the MRI of your retirement plan. Just like the doctor looked at my MRI to let me know what he recommends and what the potential problems could be, we’re gonna look at your retirement risk report kind of as our MRI, so you can decide if there are any gaps in your situation that need to be addressed.

If you’d like to take us up on this retirement risk report offer, all you need to do is go to our website, providencefinancialradio.com/report. Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/report. Leave us your information. Someone will call you. We’ll get you on the calendar for an advisor. We’ll walk you through the process.

We’ll get you your report. Very easy, but you may come out the other side with some knowledge that you didn’t have before that will help you avoid some dramatic pain potentially down the road. To get your free retirement risk report, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/report and someone will contact you shortly to explain the process.

I’m Anthony Saccaro. Thank you for spending your time with us. You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show, where it truly is all about the income. We’re talking about some parallels between me having an upcoming bicep surgery and retirement planning. It really is amazing how the medical world and the financial retirement world kind of blend together, and there’s just a lot of similarities.

Another similarity that I think is really worth discussing is that timing matters. In my situation, with a torn bicep, I need to get the surgery done as quick as possible because there’s a window of time before the bicep self-heals in the wrong place, and it makes the surgery much more difficult. And that means in the next week or two, I’ll be under the knife.

It’s a narrow window, though, and every week that I wait is a week where that window gets narrower. It’s no different when it comes to retirement planning. If you’re 50 years old, you can fix something a little easier than when you’re 70. You remember earlier, we took a question from an individual that was 75 years old and wanted to know about doing Roth conversions?

My answer to her is, yeah, it’s not that it’s too late. It’s never really too late. But had you have started doing Roth conversions at the age of 60 years old, there was an opportunity that you would have had that you no longer have now. The longer you wait, the more narrow that window becomes, and there’s a point in time where it is too late.

Retirement planning has the same sense of urgency as my bicep surgery The problem is my bicep is hurting me, and it’s there bugging me, and I know that I have to have the surgery. Retirement planning’s a little more coy than that. It’s sneaky. There are things that you’re probably doing now that are gonna hurt you in 10 or 20 or 30 years from now.

You just don’t know that the pain exists. It just hasn’t showed up yet. I certainly don’t wanna make that sound like that’s all of you. There are times that we review retirement plans and everyone’s doing great. That’s just not the majority of the time. The majority of you are doing things that you could be doing better.

Until you get a second opinion, though, like we talked about just a few minutes ago, you don’t even know what the problems are. You don’t even know what you might be able to do better. RMD planning is really a fantastic example of that. You probably know that if you’ve got pre-tax retirement accounts, when you reach a certain age, you’ve gotta start taking minimum distributions.

It’s called RMDs, required minimum distributions. The government starts forcing you to start taking withdrawals and claiming it as income, and then you have to pay tax on that. One of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is they just wait for RMDs to happen. They wait to get to that age, and we get a call saying, “Hey, they’re, you know, 73 years old or 75 years old, and they’ve gotta start taking their RMDs, and they want help.”

Had they have called us a decade earlier, there is so much more that we could have done to minimize the tax pain that they’re gonna start feeling now. At 63 years old, they still had the pain. They were putting themselves in position to have problems down the road. They just didn’t know it Now that they’re 73 and RMD age, that opportunity is gone.

And better said, it’s not gone, it’s just not as advantageous as if they had started 10 years earlier. Waiting too long is a very, very common mistake that I see in the retirement world. Here’s the unfortunate thing. Many of you might be in a position where you’re waiting too long, you don’t even know it, and that’s the key.

You don’t even know it. That’s why I wrote my Amazon number one best-selling book, More Life Than Money. I talk about the most common mistakes that I’ve seen retirees make and what you need to do to avoid them. I will send you More Life Than Money absolutely free of charge. You just have to request it, and you can do that by going to providencefinancialradio.com/book.

Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Leave us your address, and it’ll show up on your doorstep in just the next couple of days. You’ll learn what it is that you don’t know right now, so that when you do get to retirement, you’ll be in the best position possible. One more time, to claim your free copy of More Life Than Money, just go to providencefinancialradio.com/book.

You’ll have it shortly. You’re gonna be really glad that you read it, though. And I can just about guarantee you’ll learn something that you didn’t know before. Waiting is a choice, and oftentimes an expensive one. Go to providencefinancialradio.com/book and get your book now. Don’t wait.

I’m Anthony Saccaro. You’re locked into the Providence Financial Retirement Show. We’re in the middle of a really good show. I’ve been drawing some parallels between my upcoming bicep surgery And retirement planning. When you stop and sit back and you think about the medical world and retirement planning, there really are a lot of similarities, and we’ve talked about a lot of those already.

Another parallel that I wanna draw between the medical world, more specifically the surgery that I have to have on my torn bicep, and retirement planning is this: the cost of inaction. The doctor explained to me that if I don’t do anything, or particularly if I wait too long, my bicep tendon is essentially gonna harden up.

It’s gonna harden in place. It’s gonna make it hard to repair. They might have to do some bone grafting, and ultimately it just makes the surgery much more complicated. And more complicated means more expensive, and it means more painful. If I wait too long as well, my arm may never be quite the same again.

So time is really of the essence. When it comes to retirement planning, though, very rarely is something, a decision so important that it has to be made in the next week or two. In the case of my torn bicep, I have about six weeks, and I’m about halfway through that period, so I still have a few weeks to go, knowing that the sooner I can find the doctor I wanna do it, the better I’m gonna be.

With retirement planning, though, you don’t have just six weeks, and deterioration doesn’t occur over just a short time. It happens slowly, and you don’t even notice it. And that’s exactly how retirement plans fail, silently over time until it’s too late to fix. When you don’t address things like longevity risk but you actually live to 90, that could be a problem, especially if your plan says that you’re gonna run out of money by the time you’re 85 years old.

But that deterioration of your lifestyle happens gradually. Not locking in income. If you’re relying on investment growth but a market crash hits when you’re 70 or 75 years old, your portfolio just doesn’t ever have a chance to recover, and that damage is gonna compound and affect you the rest of your life.

Ignoring inflation. Your spending power is gonna erode over time, but it doesn’t erode one year with inflation being so dramatic that next year you can’t afford to live the same way that you did this year. But 10 years down the road you might not be able to afford to live the same way you did this year.

It’s silent. It’s gradual. It’s not all at once. The damage compounds silently until it’s just too late to recover. Small problems become structural failures. A tax inefficiency at 60 costs you thousands of dollars by the time you’re 75 years old. A withdrawal strategy mistake at 65 can derail your entire retirement plan by the time you’re 80 And an inflation miscalculation at 55 could mean poverty at 85 years old.

These are all small, silent damages that compound over time. The biggest mistake, though, is not even knowing that they exist. That’s why we’ve put together a short animated video that talks about the seven most common retirement risks that your retirement is exposed to that you might not even be aware of.

I wanna send this video to you free of charge. It’s animated, so it’s fun, but it’s very powerful, and you’ll learn about the most common mistakes so you can know what they are and how to avoid them To claim your free video and have it emailed right over to your inbox, very easy. All you need to do is go to providencefinancialradio.com/video.

Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/video. Leave us your information, and you will have it in your inbox shortly. To get your free video about the seven most common mistakes that I’ve seen retirees make and how to avoid them, go to providencefinancialradio.com/video. You’ll have it in your inbox shortly, but you’re gonna really enjoy watching it, and you’ll learn a lot too.

You’re listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. Thank you for taking time out of your day wherever life may have you to join us. My name is Anthony Saccaro, and my goal is to give you the information and education you need so you can have the retirement that you deserve. If you’ve been with us this whole time, you know that I have a bicep that I’ve torn, and I’m gonna have to have some surgery.

And I’ve really been thinking a lot about the parallels between the medical world and the financial world or the retirement world, and there are a lot of them, and that’s what we’re spending our time talking about today, all the parallels between medicine and my bicep surgery and retirement planning.

The last parallel that I wanna draw our attention to as we begin to round out our show today is this: it’s your life, it’s your retirement, and it’s your responsibility to take ownership of that. It’s no different when it comes to my medical situation. I need professional help, but it’s still my responsibility to make the best decisions possible and to ask the right questions to get the information I need so that I can decide which doctor and what type of procedure I wanna go through.

If you’ve ever gone through any type of injury or surgery like this before, you probably did the same thing, especially if it’s serious, right? The more serious it is, the more of a second opinion and the more time you wanna take to make sure you make the right decision. Even though someone is gonna be helping you though, it’s still your responsibility.

I have just found that when it comes to retirement planning, people don’t seem to have the same sense of urgency or the same sense of responsibility as maybe when it comes to a surgery. When it comes to going under the knife, oh my gosh, you better believe you’re gonna make calls, you’re gonna talk to different people, you’re gonna get multiple tests, you’re gonna do your research, Google it, or if you’re into ChatGPT nowadays, you’re gonna ChatGPT it.

You’re gonna learn everything you need to know about going under the knife because it’s a big decision. It’s gonna be painful. Yet when it comes to retirement planning, I find that many of you are just kind of letting it happen Retirement by accident, not so much retirement by design. Decisions about Social Security are kind of made haphazardly.

How to invest in retirement, analyzing how much risk you’re taking. I find that a lot of times people are just not doing any of this stuff. They treat a surgery much more important with a lot more decision-making than they do retirement, although retirement is a much more expensive and a much longer, and I’ll even say more important process than a surgery.

The ramifications that you’re gonna make for your retirement are gonna have a much greater impact 10 or 20 years down the road than a surgery that, in my situation, will be fully done within six months I find that too many people just delegate it. They set it and forget it. As a matter of fact, that’s a common phrase in the retirement world, set it and forget it.

Well, why would you wanna do that with the most expensive purchase that you’re ever gonna make? You don’t wanna set it and forget it. It always needs to be adjusted. Set it and forget it is actually really good for the financial advisor ’cause it means that they don’t have to help you make a lot of changes, and they’ve got time to go find someone else.

It’s not a strategy that I would recommend for you, though. The whole set it and forget it thought creates a conflict of interest. The advisor’s already getting paid for the money that they’re managing for you, and as little work as they can do to keep you as a client and still continue getting their paycheck every month, every time they withdraw their fees from your accounts, that’s gonna be what they lean towards doing.

Same thing is true when it comes to my surgery. I know that the surgeon gets paid a lot more when he cuts into me, so when his answer is, “Oh, you need to have surgery,” there’s a bias behind that. That doesn’t mean it’s not true, and maybe I do have to have surgery, but maybe there are other alternatives or ways that it can be done less expensively, but that doesn’t make him as much money, and I might not hear about any of those ways because of that conflict of interest.

It’s your responsibility, though. It’s your responsibility to have a plan. It’s your responsibility to have the right advisor. It’s your responsibility to ask questions, and it’s your responsibility not just to sit back on your laurels and hope everything’s gonna be okay, hope that everything works out.

Hope’s not a good retirement strategy, by the way. Put yourself in a position to where you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. You understand how much income you can get. You’ve asked the hard questions. You understand what happens if you live to 100 years old, as a lot of you will do, even though you don’t think you will, you will.

Don’t just rest on your laurels. I would implore you, get the information you need, start asking questions so that if you are doing anything inadvertently now that’s gonna cause you pain 10 or 20 years from now, you can fix it. The sooner you fix it, the better. If you’re not even sure where to start, I’ve got an idea for you.

Get a copy of my book, More Life Than Money. I will make it available free of charge. If you don’t want it free, you can go to Amazon and buy it, 25 bucks. It’s a number one bestseller. But if you wanna save 25 bucks, go to our website, give us your information, and we will get it right out. The website to go to is providencefinancialradio.com/book.

Again, it’s providencefinancialradio.com/book. Leave us your information. You’ll have it on your doorstep within just a few days, I promise. But you’ll learn about the most common mistakes that I’ve seen retirees make over my career and what you need to do to avoid them. One more time, to get your free copy of More Life Than Money…

Go to providencefinancialradio.com/book and you will have it shortly. I’m Anthony Saccaro. Thank you for taking time to join us. You’ve been listening to the Providence Financial Retirement Show. I certainly hope you’ve learned something that you didn’t know before and something that will give you the confidence and clarity and peace of mind that you deserve in retirement.

Have a great week everyone. God bless.