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Transcript
Zach:
Welcome to retirement today. I’m your co-host Zach Holcomb. And alongside me, we have Michael Reese. He’s a certified financial planning professional, and he spent the last 20 plus years special specializing in the world of retirement planning, helping families get into and it through retirement. We’re back here on retirement today. But before we get started on today’s show, Mike, how have you been? I’m
Mike:
All excited. So I’m geeked today, Zach.
Zach:
What’s on your mind. What are you so excited about? Here’s the
Mike:
Deal? I, I mean, we know Christmas is coming up. It is I’m done. I’ve done everything. I bought everything for Christmas. I haven’t like got normally I’m the guy mm-hmm, <affirmative> like the day, like Christmas Eve or maybe the day before Christmas Eve I’m in all the stores like freaking out. I gotta get something for my wife, Becky, not this year, this year I’m done. And I feel so proud of myself. Hey, good
Zach:
For you pat, on the back. Right? See, are you done? Maybe hope nobody else is listened name that knows <laugh>
Mike:
Anyway. So I’m in a
Zach:
Happy mood. Awesome. I’m glad to hear that. Well, Hey, I think we got a great show on our hands today and our listeners are pretty pumped. You know, you told me before the show, you wanted to talk a little bit about kind of who we are, what we do, who we serve and how that’s important to our listeners.
Mike:
Yeah, that’s right. So Zach, I think one of the things that we don’t talk about enough is, you know, kind of what do we really do at our firm and who do we serve and, and why do we do it? And, and I’m just gonna hit a couple of those real quickly, right? So the first is what do we do? So is you’re listening in the car, you know, you probably think financial advisors, they’re all the same, right? They dress the same. They talk the same. They look the same. It’s like, they’re these little robots, you know, that are printed out in some financial advisor factory mm-hmm <affirmative> right. They’re
Zach:
3D printed.
Mike:
They’re all that’s right. My son has a 3d printer now, by the way. It’s that’s really cool. Yeah. Anyway what we do is we really focus on retirement planning and we do comp of planning for retirement. And, you know, you like to say it all the time, Zach, what’s your favorite line?
Zach:
An investment plan. That’s not a retirement
Mike:
Plan. That’s exactly it investing is certainly part of retirement planning, but it is just that a part of retirement plan. Yeah. So one piece of the puzzle. Yeah. So when you ask, Hey Mike, what do you guys do? We do comprehensive retirement planning. Well, what does that mean? That means we help our clients with their money issues, which is investing’s part of it, but also income planning, you know, by the way, it could be said that income planning is retirement planning, you know? And, and one of the things that I think is missed way too often is, you know, when we talk to people, they don’t have an income plan. And, you know, as you’re listening, think about that, do you have an income plan? Well, if you don’t have an income plan, one that takes into account your social security, pensions, you know, maybe rental income, you know, when are you gonna take money from your portfolio, your retirement accounts or your after tax money and is your money generating enough income, you know, to make sure that you’re, you’re plugging your income gaps.
Mike:
If you don’t have an income plan, that’s really easy to understand, guess what? You don’t have a retirement plan. It’s that simple. So that’s money questions. We help them with their tax planning and, you know, everybody wants to pay less tax if they can legally. Right? Sure. Well, except for like three people listening to us right now never met one of those three people. Yeah. Well, I’ve met ’em I just <laugh>. I don’t think I can help ’em anyway. And then you’ve got risk management, you know, and, and what is risk management? Well, what happens if the mark either collapses or goes sideways for a period of time? Are you still gonna be okay? What about risk of healthcare? You die too soon, or you get sick along the way. What if inflation goes crazy right now? Inflation’s going crazy. Well, not really crazy compared to other countries, but it to us it’s going crazy.
Mike:
Well, if that’s temporary great. But what if it’s not? What if it’s more long term, those are risks. So your money, your taxes, your risk management, you need to have all of those areas covered to have a well coordinated retirement plan. So what do we do? We do comprehensive retirement planning that handles all of that stuff. Right. And then the next question I always like to a talk about is, you know, who do we serve? Right. Cause I think sometimes people think, oh, you’re a financial firm. You only wanna talk to people that have like lots of money. Right. And, and lots of money being defined as, I don’t know, $5 million or more or something. Millions. Yeah. Millions or what, what is, what do they say in Austin Powers? $1 billion. Yeah. It was remember it was like $1 million. Yeah. In like Dr. Evil.
Mike:
<Laugh> I think you wanna bump that up a little bit. Yeah. Anyway, the point is we serve primarily middle class and upper class families, like that’s who we serve. And so typically the clients we serve, they might have anywhere from say 250,000 that they’re working with all the way up to maybe 5 million. You start getting below two 50. There’s not a lot. We can do you start getting over 5 million things, start getting a little more complicated. Our sweet spot is really that range of assets. It’s middle class and upper middle class families, right. That’s who we serve. And the reason that we do it, and I’m gonna share some stories on the show today, but here’s why we serve that group of people.
Mike:
I am a, I have learned over 25 plus years in this industry that, and I see it over and over again, the same thing’s happening over and over the financial industry as a whole does a really, really bad job servicing these people. I mean like a really bad job. All they wanna do is talk about investing money. All they wanna really talk about is growth and accumulation. And I see the exact same mistakes happening over and over and over. Right. Cause they’re doing the exact same things for all of these people. Yeah. Here’s a great example by the way. So I want you to think about my parents. Okay. When my, my mom and dad retired back in 1999 and at the time they had some pension and social security, but my parents had $300,000 say for retirement, it’s all. Now my dad, middle class guy worked for state farm claims, adjuster, great values.
Mike:
They raised four children put us all through college. And when they retired, they had, he had about 300,000 in his 401k. But guess what? That was plenty because what did he need for income about a thousand a month, 12,000 a year, 4%. Right. So what does the big financial industry tell him to do say, oh, we’ve got this solved. We know exactly what you should do. You should put your money into 60% stocks and 40% bonds, a classic diversified portfolio, a class that’s right. Very well said, Zach, a classic diversified, balanced portfolio, by the way, if you have that portfolio, that is not a very good portfolio for retirement. <Laugh> you’re about to find out why. So they boo. So they do it. They’re like, okay, 60, 40. That’s what we will do. And the first year in retirement is 1999, the market up like 20% or something everything’s working great.
Mike:
And it’s like, oh, this is awesome. Retirement’s lovely. We took our 12,000 out. Our accounts grew retirement is easy peasy. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but then the.com crash happened. And we had 2000, 2001, 2002 in that three year period, the stock market was down roughly 50%. My parents who started with 300,000, remember they’re only taken out 12,000 a year. By the time they hit the end of 2002, basically four years into retirement, their accounts were down below 150 grand. They lost over of what it took their entire lives to save. I mean, think about that. It took my dad 30 plus years to save that 300,000. And in four short years, half of it was gone. And at that point, you know, what do they have to do? They have to start taking less income. In fact, they stopped taking it all together there, right? Cause they’re worried they’re gonna run money.
Mike:
Which if they kept taking a thousand dollars a month, they would’ve run outta money. But they’re like, holy cow, we gotta tighten our belt. My dad’s thinking, man, do I have to go back to work? Like they sleepless nights, money, stress about money. They were freaking out. And guess what? They and everybody else see, here’s the problem. A balanced portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds. That’s a great portfolio to grow and accumulate without too much volatility. <Affirmative>. But if you’re trying to live off of it in retirement, it is dead in the water. It only works when markets are good. Not when markets are bad. And guess what folks that just ain’t good enough as my dad would say, now here’s the thing we’re coming up against a break. So I wanna make sure I share this with all of you. So Zach and I we’ve opened up some time on the calendar.
Mike:
If you are sitting there, you’re like, holy cow, I’ve got that 60, 40 balanced portfolio. I’ve got between 250,000 and 5 million say for retirement, which is probably a lot of you. And you might be wondering, are you doing the right things for your retirement? Well, I want you, we’ve opened up some time. I want you give us a call on our number. We’ve opened up some time and what we’re doing, we’re happy to talk to you. We’ve opened up 10 spots on the calendar where you can call in and look, just ask us what you know, tell us what’s your most pressing financial concern. Let’s get a second opinion on what you you’re doing with your retirement planning. It’s very easy, right? Zach, it all starts with like a 15 minute phone
Zach:
Call. Right? You got it? Yeah. Mike, it’s super easy. You can just give us a call at (512) 886-5850. Again, that’s 5 1, 2 8, 8, 6 58 50. Now it’s after hours, you’re gonna get our answering service. And they’re just gonna ask your name, your number at a good time for us to give you a call back. It’s that easy.
Mike:
Yeah. And really it all starts, like I said, quick and easy, 15 minute phone call. And in that phone call, all you do is you share, Hey, here’s what I’m worried about in retirement with my planning. And Hey, guess what? We might be able to help answer some questions for you right then and there, or it might require more in depth discussion. If that’s the case, we just schedule a time to do that. And the best part is it’s free. It doesn’t cost you a dime, right? So why wouldn’t you do that? It’s easy. The easiest path to a complete retirement plan is to just give us a call. That’s where it all starts. Let’s make sure you’re making the right decision. Let’s get that second opinion. And again, it’s 5 1, 2 8, 8, 6 58 50. It’s Christmas time. I wish I could sing a jingle, but I don’t have a voice for singing <laugh> but there it is. 5 1, 2 8, 8, 6 58, 50 10 spots. That’s all we got. First 10 callers get ’em. It’s that simple call now. All right, don’t go anywhere. Cuz when we come back, I’m gonna tell you a great story about my grandparent. That really describes everything that we’re talking about here. We’ll be right back.