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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome, you are listening to and watching the Financial
Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Letz. Well, if you
like me, you probably think about retiring quite a bit.
I'm not quite ready to take the ultimate plunge, but
if you're getting close, you should be thinking about it.
And retirement expert Joe Schmidts is with us now. He's
just written a book, Joe, your book, The two Percent Club?
How do I join?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean it's it's a specific crowd. It's a
niche crowd. Not every one can join it. Unfortunately, it's
those with pensions and those with a million dollars are
more safe. So I wrote a book about this concept
of crowd that we specifically serve. I actually have a
YouTube channel it's called Joe No's Retirement, and all we
do is talk about this crowd of people and it
has over one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers at this point,
and we have millions of viewers from people all across
the country. But this two percent club number comes from
the fact that only less than twenty percent of people
have a pension nowadays, so a lot less people have
that guaranteed amount coming to them for the rest of
their lives. And we know these people to be those
that live a life of service, retired military, retired federal employees,
retired state employees, you know, retired police officers, firefighters, and
so these are people who are going to have that
that livelihood, that pension coming to them every month for
the rest of their life. Now that's one portion of
the two percent club. The other portion is those who
have a million dollars or more saved. And there's only
less than ten percent of people in the entire country
who have a million dollars or more saved in their
investments for retirement. And so if you have it twenty
if you have the twenty percent over here, the ten
percent there, that's only two percent of the population that
has both a high income and a high net worth
throughout their retirement. So these people are going to have
to pay a lot more in taxes is what we
typically see, and they need a lot more advanced planning
considering that they're in such a great situation, you know,
compared to their peers there.
Speaker 2: Right, So yeah, I guess they're in the minority. And
you know what, if you're not in the two percent club.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if you're not a two percent club, you're
you're planning for retirement is definitely going to be more
difficult without that pension coming in every every month moving forward,
it's going to allow you to it's going to be
forcing you to plan more for retirement on your own.
And if you go back many years, pensions were more common,
more people had pensions, more companies offered tions, and the
reason why is because people didn't live as long as
they're living now. And so now that people are living
a twenty plus or even a thirty plus year retirement,
it's making these pension funds really hard to make sure
they can be funded for a long period of time.
So a lot of the companies nowadays have gone away
from pensions, and that's why eighty percent of people do
not have pensions anymore. So, yes, they're going to be
responsible for those that income that they're going to have
to generate in retirement. And that's again why we tell
our clients all time with pensions, hey you're in a
very blessed situation. Let's make sure we take care of this.
Let's make sure we have more purpose for the money
that we have, because now we can either spend more,
gift more, or spend more. Typically, people in the two
percent club, they're not worried about running out of money
per se. They're more so worried about running out of life.
Making sure they can do what they want, when they want,
with who they want. It's what we call financial freedom,
and so really making sure they can live that out
to their fullest capability, knowing they've worked so hard for
like of the same company for the last thirty or
forty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, some of those government pensions do look a
little shaky though. I wouldn't want to be an Illinois
retiree with thirty years left to go, because you know
at some point that system's going to croak.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely concerned people have with tensions,
you know. Now, I will say with some of the
federal pensions especially, you know, I don't really worry about
those now, and I just more so worry for those
who are younger aren't going to get as generous as pensions,
that the calculations for them aren't going to be as
generous as it used to be. Federal employees is a
prime example. There used to be a system with them
called the CSRS system. My aunt was actually she's a
retired federal EMPLOYEEES. She's actually in that system. The pensions
in the CSRS are incredible now, Like my mom, she
retired as a FIRS employee and their pensions are still good,
but they're not as generous as they were. And so
it's just something to pay attention to for anyone out there,
regardless where you're at, to definitely be aware how how
can this pension function moving forward? Because it's just math
at the end of the day. And for those at
a private company, those are where we're typically seeing that
reductions actually can't happen and have happened in the past.
So really making sure you're aware of how that pension
fund is doing, you know, what where are they at
with it, Is it likely going to be paying out?
If not, maybe a good reason to look at taking
the lump sum option if that company offers that to
take a lump sum pension option when you retire. We're
seeing that become more popular nowadays for that reason, but
also for many others. Right, if one spouse passes away first,
then that pension may not pay on at all to
that next spouse. So if you take a lump sum,
now that money can go to the next generation, or
you could use it, you know, during your lifetime and
be able to spend more maybe in your go go
years early on in your retirement. So lots of things
to think about with those decisions.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, So what's your average client look like, Joe?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I wrote another book called The Midwestern Millionaire,
And so this book is all about those who have
Midwestern values. Now, we work with clients all across the country.
You know, about eighty to ninety percent of our clients
nowadays come to us from outside of this state of
Ohio where we're from, just because our niche that we
serve is more specific. So most of our clients have
a million dollars or more saved, and they're just diligent,
hard working, frugal people. And I just say they're fright
the people I grew up around you know, I grew
up in a small rural community caro Ohio. One traffic
light sometimes it works, and so, you know, those are
the people that we serve, and those people typically have pensions,
they've been diligent savers. But the thing I say most
about these people is they are the absolute worst spenders.
They are savers and the worst spenders. So a lot
of times with our clients, we're trying to wrestle them
to do more with their wealth, whether that's giving more
away to charities, gifting more to their loved ones, or
maybe it means spending more on this what they've worked
so hard for. So that's the general crowd that we
work with. And when someone hears us talking about it,
or if they read the first twenty page of my
Midwestern Millionaire book, they can pretty much define that that's me.
That's me. That's me. And I actually just did a
YouTube video that had one hundred things that these Midwestern
millionaires have done to get to where they are. So
it's a really fun story to share. Just what have
they done, how hard have they worked? What are they
sacrificed to get to this place of that financial freedom.
We've been talking about.
Speaker 2: I like it. I like it. It sounds good. So
how does one contact you? How do you get the book?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if they go to our website Peak Retirement
Planning dot com, we will send that book out to them.
They can request a digital copy or a physical copy
if they want us to mail that to them. We
wrote the books to try to get in as many
hands as possible, and so it gives people a really
good resource as they plan for retirement. We actually add
in there what we call our retirement Toolkit in there too,
so I get featured in Kipling or I write two
articles a month for them. So we've included some of
the more popular Kiplinger articles I've written, and also as
long with the book and some other resources as they
plan for retirement, so hopefully can help that they make
the next stage. If they've got a pension, definitely requests
a two percent club. If they have a million dollars
or more with no pension, then that's where that Midwestern
Millionaire Books is going to be a great one. And
I wrote another book, Card I Hate Taxes is actually
over my shoulder right now, and that's one of my
favorite books I've written, and for those who hate taxes
like myself, then this is a great book to find
some tax planning strategies as people are planning for their retirement.
Speaker 2: All right, excellent, So just give us your website again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's Peak Retirement Planning dot com. That's Peak
and then Retirement Planning dot com. If they look us
up there, look up my name, Joe Schmidt, so be
able to find some resources there to make sure they're
planning the right direction.
Speaker 2: And it sounds like the book is entertaining reading and
like many of these retirement books which are very dry,
and we really appreciate that. If you've got a question
for Joe myself, shoot me an email klfcarrieluts dot com.
Speaker 3: Thanks for coming on, Joe, Yeah, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, your
solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
Financial Survival Network dot com. Financial Survival Network more than
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