Well, I mean, AI is obviously changing, changing our worlds, and
uh, changing our worlds fast. We could probably comprehend. You know,
AIS is obviously interesting. You know, I still wouldn't use it to to
really create a retirement plan for myself. Again, it's it's it's going to
be some one of those things. It's going to give you more of a
of a cookie cutter type of type of bancer versus something that's completely customizable to
you in your situation and what you what you want your legacy to be.
You're listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, where you get valuable information you
just can't find anywhere else to thrive in today's trying times. You need the
Financial Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com and
get your free newsletter and gift. Financial Survival Network now more than ever.
And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm your
host, Carrie Lutts. Well. Two fears in life. Well, one
main fear that I have and I'm sure many of you out there do as
well, and that is that your money is not going to outlive you or
outlast you. You're going to outlast your money. And that is a nightmare
because what do you do then go back to your kids. Last thing you
want to do, because they'll put the screws to you. You know,
they're going to be controlling your life. And of course retirement, you know
the concept of retirement. You work twenty five thirty years for the same company
and then they give you a gold watch and send you on your way,
and then you retire. And so many of you out there no people who
passed on in like a matter of months after their retirement. So, hey,
I'm in my sixties now. Retirement has absolutely no allure to me whatsoever.
It had more of an allure Eric, than when I was forty then
when I hit sixty. So good figure. Eric Mangold is with us,
founder of Argency Wealth Management and in my birth state, New Jersey. Eric,
it's great to have you on the show. So what of this retirement
thing. We got this article from CEO Larry Fink Black Rock say in time
to rethink it. Is that just a question that he wants to raise the
retirement age and all that to put down on the social security deficit. What's
up with that? Yeah, Kerry, thanks for hosting me Glad to be
here. Yeah, So Blackrock CEO Larry Fink came out and said, I
think people really start to need to rethink retiring at age sixty five because,
like you said, who's really retiring at sixty five now? And was that
just the date that everybody did it or is it just is there some significance
outside of when you know, that's what medicare gets kicked on, like why
is it sixty five? You know, and we're living longer too, so
is sixty five early to date? And for more and more people doesn't seem
like it is? Right? Yeah, for sure. You know, I
don't think I'm unique by any means. I think that the drudgery of work
where our parents' generation perhaps led them to want to escape it. Many of
you out there your parents were in that situation. But now it's chained work.
Not that it's necessarily more important part of our lives, but the role
that it plays I think has been recognized as something way beyond just actually putting
in your nine to five and getting a paycheck. There's social aspects to it,
there's a mental acuity aspects. And you know, my best friend he
retired like three or four years ago, takes care of his grandchildren, travels
and all that. And I thought about it for a while and I just
said, there's no way I can do this. I can't do it.
Eric. I mean, the BBC came out with a study about twelve years
ago, ten twelve years ago that said that people that retire and don't have
a game plan they did, the rate of depression increases by forty percent within
like six months. So it's you know, retirement kind of sounds all great,
like, oh, I'm not going to work anymore, We're not going
to work anymore, but that honeymoon doesn't last all that long, and you
know, one two months of not working and you're like, Okay, this
is great, this is great. You did all the home projects that have
been you know, on the honeydew list forever. You took care of those,
You took care of the Martinez by the by the dock and everything.
But now it's like, all right, what's what's going to make me happy?
And sitting around is not going to do it for most people. Yeah,
I think a good rule of retirement. And this is what I did
when I moved to Florida, is I don't drink. I don't have any
alcohol until the sun goes down, except sometimes on the weekend for brunch or
something. But I'll never drink if the is out. And you know,
the other thing is what do you do when you're retired and you don't have
that plan? You wind up watching a lot of news and nothing will make
you more depressed than watching the news. So I never watched news on television.
I'll only read it because you know, a lot of it's manipulation,
gas lighting and all that. So all right, but some people have to
retire for health reasons, family reasons, take care of a loved one who
needs there needs them to be a caregiver. So for those people, what
do you advise? Well, I think that in those cases, and those
happen a lot as well, is what is the plan? I mean,
the folks that are caregivers, they're really lies their activity, right, they're
a caregiver. They're not sitting around and then trying to figure out that it's
eleven o'clock on a Tuesday, what am I going to do today? Now?
Their full time job is taking care of a loved one and that's what's
keeping them keeping them active. I mean, it's not the most positive vironment,
but it's certainly keeping them active. But I think for anyone that's really
considering retiring and not working at all really needs to have a plan. And
what that plan really needs is going to be is Okay, what do they
want retirement to look like? What do they want them what do they want
their money to do? And what do they need their money to do?
And what I mean by that is Okay, they obviously want their money to
last, they want their money to grow, they want their money to be
there when they need it. And then what do they wanted to do?
Is it travel the world? Is it you start start the side hustle.
More people who are retired, they have opest post age sixty five are starting
these side pit hustles now because you know why they can. The environment is
great for the side hustle. So a lot of people are retiring, maybe
stopping working at sixty to start the side hustle. But anyway, for those
people that need to retire, having a plan. If the boy Scouts say
the best time to have the map is before you enter the woods, and
I think that really applies to retirement too, because you got to have your
plan. It's not a DIY project. You know, you got to map
it out, all right, So what's the best way to do this?
I mean, I hear what you're saying, but I don't really know how
to do it. I think, you know, if you can break it
down into really there's there's seven pieces of it. The first first piece is
obviously, have a plan, got to have again, time to have the
map before you get in the woods. The second piece is going to be
how do you maximize your Social Security benefits? And there is, yes,
a ton of talk, a ton of gloom, doom and gloom about is
the money going to be there or the benefits going to be paid? But
let's just take that off the table for a second and just say that they
are going to be paid. You know, how do you maximize the benefits?
And you know people can start collecting at age sixty two, but is
that really when you know you're going to start to need the money? Because
remember, social Security continues to grow. The longer you wait, the more
you get. And that's a paycheck that keeps coming into your checking account every
single month, whether the market goes up, down or sideways. So maximizing
social Security is a great is great. Step two, Step three, and
we're certainly seeing this a tremendous amount, is the hybrid retirement where you stopped
working for the company that you maybe stayed for when you're until you're sixty five,
but then you pick up some extra hours. A lot of substitute teachers,
a lot of adjunct professors can go in a couple three days of a
week and really kind of create their own schedule, stay active and bring in
a few extra dollars. Because the more dollars you're able to bring in by
working a few more years excuse me, into retirement is going to have a
dramatic effect on how much longer your money will last. Okay, and I
think step four is going to be you got to protect your money from inflation.
And obviously that's a hot button topic right now. I mean, everybody
keeps talking about when rates are going to get cut, Rates are going to
get cut in every single number, and that's that's tracking in that we've seen
over the last months, few months it's been going on. So I don't
see a rate cut really anytime soon right now, because of the fact that
the economy is still overheating and interest rates are already high, and I just
don't think they can bring them down. So how do you protect your assets
from inflation? And you should have a bucket of assets that are going to
be protected from inflation. Okay, so inflation proofing your investments. I mean,
I hear a lot of people talk about it, but I don't really
hear a lot of people with really good ways of doing it. I like
to use a call a bucket strategy, where you have a bucket of money
that's going to be your guaranteed sources of income. This actually is step five,
and I'll answer step four the answer your question on stuff four too.
But step five is how are you securing your guaranteed sources of income, whether
that's Social Security, whether that's pensions, whether there's are annuity strategies, real
estate. What are your guaranteed sources of income? And you want your guaranteed
sources of income in this first bucket to really take care of most of your
expenses, if not all, of your fixed expenses. If you're carrying a
mortgage, pay those off utilities, grow streams, dry cleaning, your travel,
your entertainment, your fund of things. Now you want those, you
want those expenses covered, and the second bucket is where you're able to have
those funds, those assets in investments that are designed to grow and designed to
grow and actually keep help keep pace of inflation. And when whether we're talking
about traditional stock, a bond and mutual fund and investments ETFs or going into
the alternative investment space, but that second bucket of money needs to outpace at
least or or at least keep pace, if not outpace inflation. So it's
kind of a one two punch. Secure your guarante, secure all your expenses,
guaranteed sources of income, and then have your second bucket of money keep
pace or out based inflation. Right, all right, so all right,
what's the best way. What do you think is the best inflation heads out
there? I think it's something that is constantly evolving. I mean, there's
going to be Obviously you see a lot of articles and about some traditional stock
and bond investing in mutual funds, but also into alternative investments, whether that
might be real estate, whether that might be private equity, hedge funds,
credit lending. There's a lot of different flavors of alternative investments. And you
know, we do a lot of due diligence on our side to make sure
that our suite of alternative investments are really have really been been vetted, and
because what we want to make sure that they can do is in twenty twenty
two is a great year as an example of this, because in twenty twenty
two, in the stock market and the bond market we're both getting cloppwered.
There are a lot of alternative investments that we're still giving positive returns, so
they can sometimes be speed breaks as part of your portfolio. So if the
market happens to go down, your stock investments aren't going up, the alternative
investments can still give you a positive return. So I think it is a
mix of some stocks and bonds as well as layering and alternative investments to help
not only grow your assets, but if certain sectors are down or certain asset
classes are down, you're going to have other asset classes in your portfolio that
are going up. Okay, So some diversification here. What about these the
flavor of the day? You know which one? Now? Right? Heyeeks,
like there's well, I mean AI is obviously changing changing our worlds and
changing our worlds fast. We could probably comprehend, you know, AIS is
obviously interesting. You know, I still wouldn't use it to to really create
a retirement plan for myself. Again, it's it's it's going to be some
one of those things. It's going to give you more of a of a
cookie cutter type of type of bancer versus something that's completely customizable to you in
your situation and what your what you want your legacy to be. Okay,
so it's the flavor of the day, and maybe in Vidia is going to
infinity. But look what's happened at Tesla recently, so we know about how
that works, right, Yeah, And Tesla came out in the news today
that said they had to lay off I think they're laying off at about ten
thousand employees, which is something that they, yeah, never wanted to do.
So you know, it's funny how those flavors of the day they changed
quickly. Yeah, isn't that interesting? Today's hero is Tomorrow's the one?
Right? Well, yeah, I thought you were going to ask you about
crypto. Well, crypto too, So you know, crypto is hitting mainstream
now. We got ETFs, we've got funds, we got options, futures.
Do we want to be in crypto? I typically say that you don't
want it as a foundation of your overall investment investment portfolio, and if you
want to, I take it almost like the going to the casino night money.
And you know a lot of people go to the casino night and they
say, you know, I've got one hundred dollars and once that's gone,
you know, I'm done gambled for the night. And that's kind of how
I look at crypto, because it has had some positive times, but I
look at it as something I just I just don't have that confidence to put
a significant portion of a portfolio into crypto. Okay, well I buy that.
I buy it, so not a significant portion, but is five percent
Okay? I think that's something that could be safe. It's not something you
want to have if if it does go down, does it totally derail your
retirement plan? I mean, really, no investment that you should own should
really if they go down, they should not be derailing your your overall retirement
plan. Okay, So crypto, precious metals, same type of thing,
same type of thing. To hear a lot a lot of news, a
lot of advertisements for gold. I mean, again, is this something to
is this something to put put a portion of your portfolio in, maybe a
small portion of it. You know, I think it's something that's it's again,
it's not going to be something that's going to break the overall strategy.
It's going to be something that it's more more speculative for sure. Okay,
so speculatively more of a traditional guy, Carrie, more a traditional type of
guy. Yeah, Well, you know, like traditionally, what happens,
the sheep get shorn, that get slaughtered, right. Well, I think
that's also where I come in with the alternatives, the alternative sleeve, because
those are things that there's a wide variety of alternatives. Not all of them
are good, and obviously they have to be vetted very very carefully. But
I think the alternative space is something that's been growing significantly, and for that
reason because you know, traditional that that traditional stock and bond investment of the
sixty to forty portfolio just hasn't been getting it done like it used to be
able to. Right, Okay, So things have changed, right, definitely.
So if somebody's sitting down and they're like getting close to their sixties,
and you know, they've saved, they've got some savings, maybe not enough
maybe not enough investments. What are three things that you think they can do?
You could say the first thing I would have. I mean, obviously,
and coming from a financial professional standpoint, they should find a financial professional
that they trust and have them build out a retirement projection and say, okay,
if we're on if we're on this path and we stay on this path,
in terms of how much we're saving, how much we're investing, you
know, a reasonable rate of return over the next ten to fifteen years.
What does our and also understand our expenses and put an inflation rise in that
on the expenses as well. What does retirement really look like? How much
money is going to come in the day come in day one of our retirement?
And am I happy about that? Or am I scared about that?
But if I know now, if I know in my fifties what my retirement
projections could look like when I'm sixty five, I have time to make changes,
time to change things up, time to make things better for myself.
Because I always say to people, you know, retirement is not a duo.
It's not a DIOI type of project. But it's not a dueover type
of situation. You know, when we were growing up and we're playing hide
and seek and somebody, you know, when you're eight or nine years old,
is bending the roles. You know you always said, okay, well
you kind of bend the roles in that one. Let's do a do over,
you know, when you start the game over again. Retirement's not like
that. Whenever you decide to pull the trigger in a retirement, what you
have is what you have. There isn't a due over and say, I
wish you did this ten or twenty years ago. So the earlier you can
diagnose what your retirement may look like and understand is that something that's attractive to
you, it's going to be really really beneficial for your future. Again,
time to have the map is before you enter the woods. If you can
get an diagnosis on your retirement in your fifties or fifteen years earlier, you
have plenty of time to make some changes and make retirement look the way that
you want it to look. All right, well I buy it the sooner
the better. And ounce of prevention is worth pound a cure, right,
Yeah? And what was pat and saying? You know, gallon of sweat
says it, or a pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood type of
thing. Maybe that's not kind of negative for a time of pods, for
a time of conversation, but it's so true. You know. It's like
or warned is forearmed, right yep. So so we need to take all
these things into into account. When people think, am I putting enough away
in retirement? Don't you think that everybody could put ten percent more into retirement
than you're doing now. I think one of the biggest things that is tough
to understand is when people think, Okay, I'm maxed out my formal Okay,
I'm going to be fine. And I think the problem is is that
for many of the people that we talk to, and this isn't just ultra
high net worth people, right, but a lot of the people that we
talked to, the formal case simply not going to be enough. You have
to do it saving on the outside of the four oh one K four key,
nothing wrong, nothing wrong with it, right, but it may not
be enough. And again it goes back to projecting how much you're going to
have saved by the time you retire, because what we're finding that what we
have found is that the four on K is probably not going to be enough,
you have to do something else. So I think so I think a
lot of people can save more than they they're saving, and I think they
can save more than they're saving without it taking a bite out of their lifestyle.
You know, they don't want to have to say, Okay, I'm
not going to be able to go on vacation this year because I'm saving for
retirement. You know, while that sometimes is a rare case, more times
than not, it's it's something that saving a little bit more is not going
to take a bite out of your lifestyle to the point where you're going to
feel it all right. So I guess people you want to know how you
can connect and get to know Erica. Where do we find you out these
days? So you can head over to my website. It's Emangold dot com,
ww W dot Emailgold dot com. I do work a lot of medical
professionals, but I always say to people eat it. When people say how
do we work with you? You know, do is there a minimum or
things like that, I always say, I want to work with people that
are respectful of our relationship and are fun to work with and what and actually
want my help. So while I do work with a lot of medical professionals.
I'm not going to shy away from somebody because if they ask me for
my help, I'm going to try to give it to them. But emailgold
dot com is my website. That's where you can learn a little bit more
about me, what I try to do for my clients, and also connect
if you'd like to connect. All right, excellent, Well the links in
the show notes to this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com. Make sure
when you go there you sign up for your free newsletter. If you've got
a question for Eric myself, email kl at Carrie luds dot com. Eric
appreciate you coming on and thank you Carrie so great, Thank you very much,
Thanks for listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival Network. Your solution to today
trying times. For the latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial
Survival Network now more than ever,