RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:00:01]

MALE: You’ve found it. It’s your safer place for retirement planning. Prepare to be coddled in pure fiduciary goodness with your host and president of Decker Retirement Planning, Mike Decker.  This is Safer Retirement Radio. If you’re in or near retirement, listen up and learn about a math-based, principle-based approach to retirement that is designed to help you enjoy a safer retirement. These strategies are to help protect and grow what you’ve saved and live the life you want today. So, grab a pen because your safer path to retirement planning starts now.

 

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MIKE: Welcome to Safer Retirement Radio where you get the transparency that you deserve. I am Mike Decker, president of Decker Retirement Planning, and I’ve brought my panel with me today. I’ve got Cameron Archibald to my left, who runs all of our servicing for all of our clients who have funded their plans and are enjoying a safer retirement. Cameron oversees all the efforts that are there. Cameron, thank you so much for joining us today.

CAMERON: Thanks for having me on, Mike.

MIKE: Now, and I’ve also got Josh who handles our new business. New business is code within our company of essentially the headquarter underwriters that work with the planners in putting together the plans. They’re able to help people enjoy safer retirement for the next 30 or 40 years. Josh, thanks for joining us today.

JOSH: Thanks, Mike.

MIKE: Just a little background on all of that for all of our new listeners that are just tuning in. This company, Decker Retirement Planning, is a company that’s built as a math-based, principle-based firm that is set up in such a way that unless the numbers say so, we don’t proceed. Unless the narrative doesn’t fit your custom situation, it doesn’t make sense to plan.

 

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MIKE: When people want honesty, we’ve gone to great lengths to hire people, full-time staff, doing the research, running the analytics on the best products that are out there. And, we just show the numbers. We built our own algorithms to be able to calculate down to the month [that have?] tax, how much someone can spend as opposed to guessing with the pie chart, playing retirement roulette. If this is new to you, if you’re just tuning in, stay tuned with us. We’ve got 58 minutes of uninterrupted content. We’ve got stories, real life examples, maybe a few laughs, who knows what will happen today. But, we’re running here all about a safer retirement. You can always go to deckerretirementplanning.com where you can get lots of information about articles and research and eBooks to download all at no cost to you.

 

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MIKE: Now, the number to remember throughout the whole show is 833-707-3030, just remember that number.  Should you hear something that you like, should you hear something that says, you know, I’d like to continue my conversation or research or share the research of what you guys were talking about on the show today. You can call 833-707-3030 and schedule a no cost visit that’s a value of 2,000 dollars at no cost to you to come in and visit with us in person. You must be 55 years or older and have at least 300 thousand of assets saved up for retirement, because we’ll say it all day long, we’re good at what we do. And we are not good at the other aspects of finance.

 

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MIKE: And, when I talk about that, I mean we’re not accumulation planners. So, if you’re in the accumulation phase, we’re not a fit for you. And we’re okay saying that. We’re not gonna try and get every person that walks through our door to work with us; that just doesn’t make sense. If you’re someone that’s retired or near retirement and you want to have transparency, you’re someone that likes to plan, you’re someone that likes to… like, if you’re going hiking through the woods, or let’s say backpacking, we’ll make it a little bit more of a verbose here. You’re going backpacking, you’re gonna map out, okay, this is where I’m camping on the different spots.  I have my map, I have my compass.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:03:41]

MIKE: I’m aware of what’s going on; I have contingency plans. If that sounds like you, we’re probably a fit for you. If you’re someone that holds a budget and likes to understand and tell your money where it’s supposed to go, we’re probably a fit for you. If you’re someone that likes to take high risk, likes to throw it all in in the market and hope the market does well. And if the market does well you get more money, if the market does less than you’re tightening your spending, we’re probably not a fit for you. We are for those who like a math-based, principle-based approach that can be explained by the numbers that is customized to their narrative, so they can focus on what matters most, as time is our most precious commodity.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:04:19]

MIKE: Gentlemen, do you mind if I kind of start with a fun little analogy here? I feel like this could be kinda playful, is that… are we good with that?

JOSH: Yeah, go ahead.

CAMERON: Yeah, go for it.

MIKE: I talk a lot, and I know you’re new to the show, but feel free to interrupt me with any comments. But, all the safer retirement radio listeners, do you remember your first love? It was a great time, right? Josh, you’re about to… [LAUGH]

JOSH: I’m still married to her.

MIKE: Okay, you’re the exception. You married your high school sweetheart. But, for the most of us, and that’s a great situation. But, for the most of us, we dated for a while and either they dumped us or we dumped them. Life happens. You learn from it, and then you make an adjustment, and then you find someone that’s better for you, better suited for you. When you’re ready to make the commitment of saying okay, you know, this person makes sense, I want to be married to them. Your boyfriend or your girlfriend, whatever it makes sense, even a life partner. I don’t want to use marriage as the only reason for this, it could be a life partner as well.

 

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MIKE: But, you want to spend the rest of your life with them. That’s a decision to where it changes from experiences and getting to know them and trying to build those experiences to a transition of okay, we’re gonna work together as a team for the entirety of your life. There’s a difference there. Now, what in the world does this have to do with finances? Well, we’re not talkin’ about anything more than understanding your professional relationship with your financial professional right now, your advisor. Accumulation planners are the dating phase. When I say the dating phase, hear me out, it’s the phase of where you’re growing your assets as best as possible, but as you progress in life you may find that they’re not a fit for you anymore.

 

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MIKE: For example, when you’re in your twenties and early thirties, you can probably take more risk, and there is an advisor who specializes in that kind of area. Some advisors can continue on with a longer relationship and help you with your thirties and forties, that’s fair. Some advisors will invest in a certain way and then things like 2000 happen and they’re doing it wrong and there’s a 50 percent market recession in there and they’re just losing you more money than the markets are losing. And you break up with them and you find someone better because you’re holding your advisors accountable to what’s happening. And you go through this cycle. Most people are gonna have two or three advisors during their accumulation phase, and that’s very normal. You’re learning about investments and what you like and what’s suitable for you in all of that.

 

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MIKE: But, when you get to retirement, do you really want to go that whole series of shenanigans to where you’re with someone in retirement for a couple of years and then markets change, the environment’s different, and then you’ve got to find another retiree, retirement planner and then you’re with them for a couple of years but it may work it may not work and it’s all just… you’re just kind of going through these motions? For most people, when they enter retirement, they’re looking for the person, their last advisor, for the rest of their life. Someone that can manage their family finances, kinda like a family CFO, kinda like an in-house controller, but someone that can manage their investments in such a way that it’s tax efficient, we’re minimizing their taxes.

 

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MIKE: That we’re growing their assets, that we’re distributing their assets and then they can expect a paycheck from their assets every single month like clockwork, which is what you do, Cameron, like clockwork.

CAMERON: Yeah, that’s right, you know, in my department we specialize in setting up the distributions and sending you the funds from principle-guaranteed accounts each month. You know, we’re not the experts on creating the income plans by design…

MIKE: That’s Josh’s department.

CAMERON: Correct, that’s Josh’s department. In my department, we’re the ones who can help send you the funds, help update and balance the plan each year so that each year you can see the progress and you can know, hey, we’re still on track, hey, we need to make some adjustments here.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:08:06]

CAMERON: And after a couple of years, clients get the rhythm very, very smoothly and understand the plan.

MIKE: It’s a beautiful thing, and we’re gonna have… share some stories later today we’ve prepared about even mid-retirement changes that happen, and how to adjust for them, how to account for them. But my point in saying is there’s a paradox here, there’s a conundrum that all retirees face. You want someone with experience, but if you’re the same age as your advisor and he’s good at his job, he’s probably gonna retire soon.

 

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MIKE: So, the longevity of that knowledge has an expiration date, and you off to then find another one and another one. And that’s exhausting. But then who wants some 20 year-old punk kid who just graduated college, got a CFP out of college but has no real world experience, it’s all theoretical application with your retirement assets. That’s also incredibly scary. Somethin’ to think about, Josh you’re leaning forward towards your mic.

JOSH: So, I was just gonna say, I mean, when it comes to… we all pay for different services, we all do different things. There’s not very many people you associate with for the rest of your life, you know?

 

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JOSH: There’s your family, your close family and friends, of course. But as far as interactions in a business sense, your advisor is really one of the only ones that you’re going to stick to, or hopefully stick to, until you die.

MIKE: Mm-hmm.

JOSH: And I mean, that’s kind of what we’re talking about. Part of that, I wanted to kinda hear your thoughts here. You talked about breaking up with an advisor, which is actually a situation a lot of our clients are in when they come over to us is they’re leaving an advisor that they’ve been with for 20 years and coming over to us. It’s not the same as leaving your barber, you just stop showing up. But for your advisor…

MIKE: Mm-hmm [LAUGH]. Just stop showing up.

 

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JOSH: What do you think? What’s your take on that? What’s your opinion of how do you break up with your advisor? I mean, I know what my thoughts are, but I’m curious what you think.

MIKE: Well, so, when it all comes down to it, I want to be as neutral about this as possible. And whether you decide to work with us or not is completely up to you. But the principle should stand that you need to do what’s in your best interest, period. Now, what does that mean? Let me talk about that. I’m gonna circle back to this, I want to finish real quick the thought about the experience bit. Decker Retirement Planning was built with over 30 years of experience from Brian Decker [PH]. And we have a younger staff that were trained with his wisdom to be able to do so, and a legacy plan to be able to do so.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:10:46]

MIKE: We have some people in our servicing department who graduated college recently, and they’re working with the wisdom being followed by what I put together, what Brian has put together. And the legacy plan is set to allow these clients to have a company that has consistent, a math-based, principle-based consistent approach to your plan that you don’t have to deal with that. So, I want to just quickly address that. But Josh, back to your question, how do you break up with an advisor? My mind goes to Moneyball. Did you both see Moneyball, ever?

JOSH: Yeah [LAUGH].

MIKE: What’s his name, Jonah Hill, or what’s…

JOSH: Yeah, Jonah Hill is the guy that plays…

MIKE: He’s the analyst.

JOSH: He’s the analyst, he’s the numbers guy, who knows everything, yeah.

MIKE: Great movie, which by the way, that was a math-based approach to baseball.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:11:33]

MIKE: And now all the leagues do it. I wonder how many people are gonna try and copy us eventually, which there are some copycats I’ve noticed already of trying to take our approach, which is fine. If we can help more people that way, then whatever. But he is so nervous to fire that one player and tell him that he’s moving to another place. He gets all worked up about it, he sits him down and says, you’re movin’ to this team, you’ll be out by the end of the day. And he is just ready for a fight. And the guy just goes, okay, and that’s just part of business. When you work in finance, it’s just a part of the industry. And though they are your friend, I’ve seen time and time again, people say, hey, I’ve had a great relationship with you.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:12:15]

MIKE: I’m moving to someone that’s more suited towards my retirement needs, but I’d still like to be friends. And they say, if you leave me, we will never speak again. That’s a very, when we talk about psychology or emotional behavior, it’s a very abusive relationship to say something like that. If a client left us and still wanted to chat with me, and just found, like, there was a more suitable bit for them. They wanted to take more risks and they weren’t having that kind of risk or whatever it may be.  I have no resentment towards them. They need to do what’s best for them, and if we’re not a fit, we’re not a fit, that’s fine.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:12:48]

MIKE: It’s the professionalism. But here’s the main question. If your advisor truly is what is best for you, then checking the menu, which I don’t encourage this for married folks. If you’re married, there’s no reason to check the menu here, we’re off that analogy now. But if you’re retired or near retirement, there is no reason about checking the menu and seeing what else is out there. No problem at all. And the reason why is if you find something that’s better for you, that means it’s better for you. What’s the price? And I’m not saying what’s the price, like, everyone can be bought, no. If someone can show you a better approach that lowers your risk, lowers your market risk, lowers your inflation risk, your interest rate risks, right?

 

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MIKE: But is also able to give you more transparency and more income for life, is that enough to make you consider it?  What about if someone could take your retirement assets, optimize them better, lower your risk, and increase your assets that you’re receiving every month? Is that enough for you? We have some clients that come over and get an extra grand to five grand, depending on their asset level, a month. And their risk is shrunk by 70 some percent. What’s your price? Is it worth it? Are you willing to check the menu or are you gonna keep goin’ to your favorite restaurant and order the same meal every single time when there’s something better out there that will taste better and cost less? That’s my big question to a lot of people.

 

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MIKE: Just because you’re with Sally doesn’t mean you can’t talk to Stacy. If your relationship with Sally is set, there’s no harm in talking to Stacy. I know…

JOSH: Strictly from an advisor standpoint.

MIKE: From an advisor standpoint. If you’re married, please don’t [LAUGH] yeah, that’s a whole ‘nother topic and I don’t want to indulge on that side. But if this is something that’s new to you, please go to, for one of the options there, and you can go to a couple of other ones, but go to deckerretirementplanning.com, learn what a safer retirement really looks like. Learn what a math-based, principle-based plan could do for you. Learn about safer investment options, learn about a safer tax plan.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:15:01]

MIKE: If you’re high net worth, especially learn about a safer tax plan as we’ve saved people six, and a couple of clients, seven figures in just tax minimization strategies that they had no idea and their current advisor was unaware of. You can also, when you go to deckerretirementplanning.com, but want to have a conversation at no cost to you. You can learn about the things that are causin’ people to stand up in their chairs and say I wish I would have known this earlier. It’s a fun conversation, but it’s… you have all the power to decide if it’s better for you or not. We are here to show our research and present it to you in a very neutral way. And then you can make a decision about that.

 

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MIKE:  Go to deckerretirementplanning.com at the bottom you can click get started and select what you want to talk about. A full Decker review, you can have a safer tax plan review, we can talk about safer investment options. You know, it’s crazy, especially in Utah, it seems like there’s a lot of people signing up for income annuities. And they’re signin’ up for, if that’s what you want to do, we have a full-time staff member who does the research on this. If you really, really want one, we’re happy to tell you what the best returnings are for the best income annuities. We don’t like them, we don’t believe in them because the average return that we’re seeing come through our office is about one point eight percent. You can do better with a money market.

 

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MIKE: But, if that’s really important to you, we’re happy to show you, mathematically, what the top earners are. We have no dog in the fight. We’re purebred fiduciaries and we’re gonna stand up to that math-based, principle-based approach. Call us, 833-707-3030, you can schedule right now. That’s 833-707-3030. We’ll have a chat, visit with us in one of our offices, two in Utah, three in Washington, one in California in San Francisco and one in Las Vegas. But when it comes down to it, what is best for you and are you comfortable just keeping your eyes open to better options that can significantly elevate the quality of your life throughout retirement? I would.

 

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MIKE: And I have no issue saying that. It’s just, like, when I talk about nutrition, my body’s different than your body, Cameron, which is different than Josh’s body. I’m gonna look at whatever is the best nutritional plan for me. It helps my wife is a nutritionist, but hopefully I’m not preachin’ to the choir, but you can feel the sincerity here. We want to do what’s best for you, and we would love to have that opportunity to show you a different approach and then let you decide what’s in your best interest, not havin’ a financial advisor decide that for you.

JOSH: Yeah, I’d just like to weigh in real quick, I know you mentioned if clients are looking for income annuities to come talk to us. More than likely once you see that there are better options, you’ll be surprised and say why are so many people buying these?

 

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JOSH: Well, because they didn’t know, you know? They just don’t know that there’s something better out there.

MIKE: Oh, yeah, well and there’s other aspects to consider with if you want an annuity, there is typically three. There is your variable annuity, which is just tragic. There’s saying in the industry, variable annuities are sold, not bought. Because if people knew what they were buying, they would never sign up for them. The only guarantee you really get is when you die and it’s off the high water mark, typically. What’s the point of that guarantee? You don’t get it until you die.

 

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MIKE: Income annuities we have found that people that like income annuities typically just want to have stability in their retirement. And there is accumulation annuities. I would say 90 plus percent, 95 percent of these accumulation annuities are terrible because they’re based off of caps. Josh, you saw a couple, the annuities that came in this week. They were accumulation annuities that had, what was the cap, like, two percent? Two and a half percent?

JOSH: We’ve seen caps as low as two percent. I think I’ve even seen one that was one point seven five, one and three-quarters, it’s crazy to find out what kinds of caps, even what kinds of spreads some of these annuities have. They just handicap the rates so much and a lot of ’em, we’ve seen several of ’em that have come in that, from day one, had a negative return each year.

 

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JOSH: And then the previous advisor would say, well, that’s because it’s, think of it as saving up for your retirement. It’s saving money on the side for your retirement.  But in reality…

MIKE: It’s not.

JOSH: It’s flat out just losing money. And yeah, they might in the future be able to set up a fixed income from it, but that fixed income is not gonna be anywhere near what you can do with the same assets in almost anything else really.

CAMERON: Even in cash, right?

JOSH: Yeah, even in cash you can… a lot of people come in and they have these annuities that, even sometimes they’ve had ’em for a long time and they say, well, it says I’m gonna make this much money off this annuity per month from this time until I die.

 

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JOSH: But you kinda have to point out, well, that means that you’re leaving behind this much money that you’re just leaving to that company, that’s money you’re never gonna see again.

MIKE: Insurance companies are not charities, so let’s stop assuming that they are.

JOSH: Yeah, definitely not, they’re private companies, they’re, I mean, there are some companies that are better than others, obviously. But their primary goal is to make a profit.

MIKE: And we’re not here to bash on any particular company. We don’t necessarily want to decide, well, we’ll give you financial professional advice. But we’re not here to decide what you have to do. We’re gonna present the options, the good, the bad, and then find out information based on what is suitable for you. And then have the conversation saying, okay, based on what you’re telling me, mathematically speaking, this seems like it’s the best for you.

 

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MIKE: Here’s the reasons why. Would you like to proceed or would you like to see other options? And Josh, you see this all the time with the planners.

JOSH: Yeah, there was one client that came in, he brought in his, basically his portfolio, and said here’s where I’m at.  I’ve got a lot of money saved up in the 401k, I’m not retiring for a few more years, and I think I’m ready to get this started. So, we sat down with him and said, okay, this looks great, here’s your options. In this case, sometimes the options are, you know, you’re doing great, let’s get things started but we’ll have to really kinda circle back each year before we can really pull the trigger on putting your plan together.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:21:18]

JOSH: The reason for that, in the case that I’m talking about, there was a client came in, he had a pretty decent asset base. He had a lot of money in his 401k, but he didn’t have a lot of money in any savings accounts. And he, we call it non-qualified assets, anything that’s not in a retirement account. And that’s great, he saved very, he was very frugal his entire life, saved for retirement. But when it came to it, he would have to wait until he was 59 and a half before being able to access those 401k funds. So, sometimes it’s good to focus on both of those, qualified and non-qualified. In his case, we were still able to put a plan together, got a plan in place, showed it to him and says…

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:21:59]

MIKE: Can you talk about the hardship that happens through that planning process? ‘Cause when it first starts, and I’ve been there with you doing this, it feels like you’re putting a square peg in a round hole because of the amount of limitations that you have. Can you talk about some of the limitations that you typically see in these situations? And then talk about how you’re able to find the square peg for the square hole and the round peg for the round hole at the end?

JOSH: Yeah, definitely. So, for example, a lot of clients come to us, in this example, they only have a little bit of non-qualified assets and they say, well, I really like your plan, here’s the accounts or the investments that I really like. And we have to take a step back and say, okay, those are great, but those companies want you to have a little bit more in liquid assets.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:22:43]

JOSH: Even though you’re working, you’re making a great paycheck, you’re financially secure and sound, but they want you to have so much set aside in assets. And that’s a little bit of a hurdle. And they okay, well, what are my options? And we’ll go through some of the steps here and figure out, okay, based on where you’re at right now, here’s your plan and here’s the steps we’re going to take each year to get you fully into your plan by the time you retire, so you can have the income you need when you retire. Every plan is gonna be a little bit different. Everybody’s assets are a little bit different, but because we’re math-based, because we’re a math-based, principle-based firm, we can always find a way to get them from point A to point B if they have the same, I guess, principles that we do, financially.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:23:30]

JOSH: That they’re wanting to have a budget, they’re wanting to have their assets provide them with… [OVERLAP]

MIKE: Structure and stability.

JOSH: Correct, yeah, as long as those things align, we can always make it work with the clients that come in.

MIKE: Yeah, and the beauty of this is we’re not predicting some crazy situation and running some hypothetical analysis on blah, blah, blah, fill in the blank, bunch of fancy footwork.

JOSH: We’re not back testing.

MIKE: We’re not back testing. It is as simple as here is where you are, is that okay with you? If it’s not, where do you need to be? And then we can find, help you find out how to get there.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:24:13]

MIKE: It’s a great conversation to have, because when I say great, I mean important and critical. Because when someone comes in and they don’t have enough assets and they want to retire with X, but their X minus fill in the blank, it is much better to have that conversation and say, here’s what it’s gonna take to get you to where you want to be so you can enjoy the retirement that you want. Then guess until retirement and then hope it works.

JOSH: Yeah, yeah, and I’ve even seen this, you know, we work with clients that have had an income plan set up where they had been pretty good contributing to their retirement. And then in their early fifties they say, okay, I want to retire in a few years. And then, you know, we run the numbers and it turns out they need to increase their retirement contributions in order to get them at that income level in retirement.

 

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JOSH: And having that clarity of saying, okay, you know, makin’ up numbers, I’m now contributing six percent, I need to contribute 12 percent to my retirement, you know, to get me for the next five years to get me at that level. Then it, you know, they have a game plan, they’re excited. Okay, you know, this is what I need to do, this is the day, you know, and the month. And some clients, you know, down to the day, this is the day I’m gonna retire, they’re so excited.

MIKE:  Mm-hmm.

JOSH: You know, and this is what I need to do to get there, both, you know, I have the Decker team workin’ the income plan to help me get there and then me doing my part to contribute to retirement until then. And it’s amazing, it works.

MIKE: Well, we’re willing to do the work for you.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:25:39]

MIKE: Here’s the three options that I have noticed as a general trend for retirement planners. The first option is let’s put you in an asset allocation pie chart, we’ll keep you guessing through retirement. We’re gonna get four percent plus a cost of living adjustment each year, and it should work. But please note, that pie chart means you’re all at risk. So, if Q4 happens, thinking of last year, and we’ll talk more about that later, or we get another situation, like Dr. Michael Berry [PH] we’ll talk about in just a moment is talkin’ about with another bubble. And we could have another massive recession like 2000, 2001, 2002 or a 2008 crash depending on how quickly it goes. All of our assets are at risk, and that includes your bond funds that are not principle guaranteed. Bond funds should never be considered as safe money.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:26:24]

MIKE: Because when interest rates go up, bond funds lose money. That’s a mathematical fact, and Jamie Diamond [PH], the CEO of Chase, has been talkin’ about how interest rates are probably gonna go up back up to five percent in the near future. Five percent means your bond funds will probably take a 20 to 30 percent hit, roughly speaking, and these are very generic ’cause I’m trying to be optimistic with the best case scenario here on how that rolls out. Are these risks, are you aware of these risks? The other extreme, so you’ve got operationally, a very simple thing, asset allocation pie charts, make adjustments throughout the year, it’s easy to manage for a financial planner.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:27:03]

MIKE: Or you can set ’em up with an income annuity, you set it up, you invest for a while, on retirement day you turn that income annuity on and you’ve got income for life with zero flexibility. Operationally, it is incredibly easy for both of these financial professionals to maintain their practice because there’s little to no work involved. We want to be there with you every single year. We want to be with you on every update, every change to your lifestyle, every heartache, and every happy moment. We want to be able to adjust the plans with the math-based, principle-based approach to cater towards your specific needs because they will change throughout retirement.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:27:44]

MIKE: We’ve had people take our plans to our competition and say will you do this for me? And they have said no. There’s a reason for that. If you want to see what we’re doing here, more transparently see it for yourself. With your name on a plan at no cost to you. If you’re 55 years or older, whether you’re retired or not, come on in, 833-707-3030, you can also go to Decker Retirement Planning dot com and click the button, get started on the bottom of the page at no cost to you, visit with one of our purebred fiduciaries. One of the 1.6 percent of fiduciaries are actually fiduciaries as according to Tony Robbins. Josh, I interrupted you, you were about to say something or did you forget?

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:28:25]

JOSH: But no, I forgot now [LAUGH].  Give me a couple of minutes.

MIKE: That’s okay. 833-707-3030 if you want to see what a true math-based, principle-based retirement plan looks like for you, driven by purebred fiduciaries, people that are willing to do all the work. And again, just to reset the stage, two full-time staff, all they do is research whatever the best products are. One is focused on risk, one is focused on principle-guaranteed products. Whatever you want, mathematically, we can show you what that is. And we pay good money, we pay good money for databases for, I mean, theta, timer track, morning star, it’s tens of thousands of dollars for us to get access to all of this. Is your financial professional willing to pay that kinda money to show you the best?

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:29:09]

MIKE: Or is he gonna just, or she, just gonna say, well, this is what I’m seeing, this is what I recommend?  I have no ego issues to say here’s a better money manager that’s gonna give you better returns than I ever would.  And I’m gonna connect you two.  Call us, 833-707-3030 or go to Decker Retirement Planning dot com, and you can click on the button at the bottom, get started.  If you’re just tuning in, this is Safer Retirement Radio, our whole purpose here is to get you the transparency that you deserve.  We’re talkin’ about a lot of things today, but we were just talking about a unique situation a lot of people face when they’re getting near retirement and they have too much in qualified assets, not enough non-qualified assets after tax funds, not roth, these are non-retirement after tax funds.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:29:56]

MIKE: That you may run into some issues on how you fund your plan and how you operate your plan and how you pull your income out.  Don’t be surprised if you’re near retirement, come in, let’s talk.  It’s better to know in advance than be caught off guard.  No one wants to get blindsided.  Cameron, I want to talk about one of your clients though, changing gears a little bit if you’re okay with that.  Because this was a blindside on a different scale.  This was a blindside when expectations did not meet reality in Q4 of last year.  Had a client that was working and retiring with one of the massive tech companies and had a lot of their pet stock.  When I say pet stock, they’re emotionally tied to it, they thought it could only go up, and then it didn’t.  Can you comment on that and kind of tell a story?

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:30:40]

CAMERON:  Yeah, first off, you know, I’d like to speak to the fact that they loved this stock, they did not want to sell this stock as part of their planning process.  They were very adamant, no, I want to keep this separate, and instead of being a pushy advisor and saying, no, no, no, you have to sell because fear, fear, fear.  No, we said, no, that’s fine.  And so, let’s keep that as self-managed legacy funds.  And a couple of years go by, this stock suffers some jitters in Q4 of 2018.

MIKE:  That’s an understatement, but yeah. [LAUGH]

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:31:17]

CAMERON:  Yeah [LAUGH].

MIKE:  You’re being very kind there.

CAMERON:  I’m being very kind, jitters is a nice way to put it.  But it took a pretty good hit, and all the sudden, the clients were very nervous and said, hey, maybe we don’t want to hold onto as much of this stock, you know?  They met with their advisor here at Decker Retirement over the course of several months, and we hammered out a plan as to how much over the course of, I believe it was five or seven years, they were going to liquidate a portion at each one of those two-year intervals in a way that they still could appreciate the upside of this stock.  But they were also getting into more conservative models.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:31:59]

CAMERON:  And it was amazing that they self-elected to make this decision.  You know, and this goes back to our principle, too, to diversify by purpose, not just by risk.  They really appreciated having safer retirement options and are extremely happy with their income plan today.

MIKE:  Oh yeah, thank you for sharing.  The big part about this, there’s two aspects here.  Diversify by purpose, not just by risk.  That stock had a legacy purpose and it was fine, and then they realized the purpose of that stock is changing drastically because the stock is not filling its purpose.  And the adjustments were made.  We’re not gonna sit here and tell you you have to do everything, we’re gonna tell you this is what the math is saying, how do you want to proceed?

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:32:41]

MIKE:  And they said, emotionally, not emotionally like they made an emotional decision, it was sentimental to them to keep things that way.  And then when that sentiment was broken, they had a bad situation, a bad instance with that investment.  That’s fine, we made the adjustments.

CAMERON:  You know and because she had worked there, she still believes that stock is going to perform well, so they’re not going to ever sell all of it.  They are keeping a portion and that’s perfectly fine, you know, you have the belief in a company that you’ve worked for and in its stock, but it really opens a lot of client’s eyes to see how much risk they’re exposed to when we have one of these market events, like in Q4 of 2018.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:33:27]

MIKE:  Oh, yeah.  Fun fact, and I use this as a parallel for the second principle, diversify by purpose not just by risk.  Did you know that the triangle is the strongest architectural structure of all the different shapes that are out there?  Have you guys ever heard this?

CAMERON:  No.

JOSH:  Yeah, it’s why bridges are built with triangles.

MIKE:  Okay, so Josh, potential architect in another life here, that’s great.  I thought that was fascinating, because I thought with all the different technology and things like that, oh, there’s this structure, there’s that structure, but the triangle shape itself is incredibly strong.  You have two fixed angles, the other one can’t be anything different.  With a square, things could tilt, they’re not supported as well.  The cool part about that is when you start looking for triangles in structures, you start seeing them in buildings, in bridges, like you said.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:34:17]

MIKE:  And all over the place and the reason why is because they not only understand, these are architects I’m talkin’ about, they not only understand the principle of what they have to work with, but how they should work with what they have to work with.  There’s one part, one level of here are the materials I have to work with, but you can take good materials and make a bad bridge.  You can take good materials and make a bad house, a bad building, whatever it may be.  There’s a second aspect, and that’s the second principle that governs proper retirement planning.  Most people understand diversification of risk.  It’s a very, very simple concept, most people get it the second they’re invested.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:35:00]

MIKE:  But you need, by diversifying by purpose, not just by risk, that’s understanding how to work with what you have to work with.  Does that make sense?

JOSH:  Yeah, definitely, I mean…

MIKE:  Josh?  Okay [LAUGH] I saw a little bit of a blank face, I wanted to make sure that you guys are also getting that, ’cause if the listeners can’t get that, maybe I’m just too deep on this concept, but you were saying?

JOSH:  Kinda like you said, different architects, different builders can do very different things with the same materials.  Just because they have good materials doesn’t mean that they’re going to be able to produce a good building.  And just like people’s portfolios, just because they have a good basis with their portfolio doesn’t mean that another advisor couldn’t burn it to the ground [LAUGH] with just different choices that they present or even sell to the clients.

MIKE:  Mm-hmm.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:35:54]

JOSH: So just because, I think most of our clients that come in the door have a very good foundation, a good base.  They have good materials and they’re just looking for a little bit of guidance on how to put that into practice or how to put that into a good product or a good building is the best analogy I can think of.  But a good… build it into something that is gonna stand the test of time, really.

MIKE:  Do you want Fort Knox or the Leaning Tower of Pisa?

JOSH:  Right.

MIKE:  I mean [LAUGH] what the Leaning Tower of Pisa actually meant to lean?  Was that…

JOSH:  No, it’s not.

MIKE:  It’s an accident, right?  It’s sinking?

JOSH:  Yeah, it’s leaning, from what I heard, it’s leaning more and more each year by just a little bit.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:36:35]

JOSH:  But yeah, it’s not supposed to lean like that.

MIKE:  Ooh [LAUGH] we’re gettin’ ready.  But again, there’s a reason why we’re a math-based, principle-based firm.  I’m gonna quickly review, for all my new listeners, our new listeners, the investment triangle.  There are three traits that any investment will have, or could have.  It is principle protection, growth and liquidity.  The problem is every given investment can only have two of the three traits.  Which one do you choose?  I can think of a lot of financial practices that will choose two of the traits and circle their entire practice around just that one product that has two traits.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:37:15]

MIKE:  And they try and get really, really good at that.  But when it comes to the second principle that governs proper retirement planning, diversify by purpose, not just by risk, it is absolutely paramount that you take two traits, or three different investments, and all three investments share the two different traits.  And that you use them appropriately.  For example, every retirement plan should have some emergency cash.  That fulfills the traits of principle protection and liquidity.  When life happens, and Cameron I know this happens all the time for you guys.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:37:45]

MIKE:  You get the call and you help the client pull out the emergency cash immediately.  Life happens.  Lot of clients like some risk.  They will have a 10 to 20 year time horizon in their plans and they want growth and liquidity.  Let’s talk about securities, let’s talk about two-sided models that are built and designed to make money in up or down markets.  Or if you want to buy and hold a tech stock like that client did, that’s fine.  But the purpose is being fulfilled by diversifying by purpose.  And then for income, keep in mind the first principle is to never draw income from a fluctuating account.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:38:20]

MIKE:  You must draw income from accounts that are principle guaranteed.  It makes more sense to me if we can structure this to, for the next 20 years, pull income from accounts that are principle protected, which fulfills the requirement, but also have growth.  Most people expect to live for 20 plus years in retirement, so let’s not spend all your money.  The money needs to be there, let’s stagger it out, let’s make sure that you’re set for your income, and let’s do it with principle protected accounts that can grow, not principle protected accounts that are liquid.  There’s no reason to draw your income from mattress, or money under the mattress here.  And by the way, if this is new, I want to extend another offer here.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:38:59]

MIKE:  You can call us if you’re 55 years or older and have at least 300 thousand of assets saved up for retirement, 2,000 dollar to get a safer distribution plan, a sole security optimization, a portfolio review, and an open conversation with a fiduciary who is legally bound to do what’s in your best interest and is a math-based, principle-based fiduciary that can talk to you about what’s really going on with your retirement and where you really stand.  Call us, 833-707-3030, that’s 833-707-3030.  Or you can go to Decker Retirement Planning dot com, and at the bottom just hit that get started button.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:39:36]

MIKE:  I want to talk, though, a little bit about the investments that stock analogy for a little bit here, Cameron, if that’s okay, and Josh?

CAMERON:  Yeah, go ahead.

MIKE:  There’s a bubble that people are starting to notice, and I’m gonna give the ends before we give the beginning.  The analogy is the theater keeps getting more crowded, but the exit door is the same as it always was.  All this gets worse as you get into even less liquidity in these equity and bond markets globally.  Passive investment has become a very popular way to invest your assets.  Great, S and P.  Just buy the indexes and let it go, and we’ve talked about that being an advocate to the idea that, sure, if you don’t want to have active money managers, according to Vanguard, 85 percent of money managers don’t even keep up with the S and P.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:40:31]

MIKE:  So, you’re beating 85 percent of financial professional by just buying the indexes and calling it good.  And that makes sense until the bubble may or could pop.  You all read the article that I’m talking about here in particular that I want to talk about here.  Let me set the stage.  Index funds have enjoyed an explosion of popularity over the past decades.  Now, we need to make sure that we understand the long-term consequences of the rise of passive investing strategies because they’re not fully understood.  And this is according to Dr. Michael Berry.  He was made famous on The Big Short.  He correctly predicted the tech wreck, saying that we’re not valuating these tech companies correctly.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:41:20]

MIKE:  And that was a 50 percent recession that we had in 2000, 2001, 2002.  And then he also correctly predicted the housing market.  If you want to see a good movie, The Big Short’s quite remarkable, I’ve been watching that under fold as he was laughed out of a lot of offices saying if you’re gonna give us free money, we’ll take it, and he’s the one that won at the end of that in a sad way.  In 2000, it was a very sad time for America.  But it seems like we’ve transferred CDO’s, those are the synthetic mortgages that you could buy off of another mortgage that created the bubble.  And we’ve translated that into the passive investing of mutual funds or ETF’s, per se.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:42:01]

MIKE:  Any comments before I continue, gentlemen?

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:42:03]

JOSH:  It kinda seems like people have, I mean in an attempt to do a little bit of a 180, people look more at passive investing as safe even though it’s not really.  A lot of people look at it as a safer way to prepare for retirement and I think as a, mentally, I think a lot of people think we’ve done a 180, but really we’re almost goin’ down the same path, even further down that path than we did with the housing crash.

MIKE:  Well, and the false positive is the bull market that we’ve had for the last 10 years, the expectation that we have and this is the false positive, is that it will just keep going.  But as I started with this segment, the theater keeps getting more full and the exit doors stay the same.  There’s an issue here that’s happening and a part of it is the pricing of index funds is at the whim of the model-based capital flows rather than bottom up fundamental analysis.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:43:01]

CAMERON:  Can you break that down for us, Mike?

MIKE:  Yeah, let’s talk about that.  I’m gonna do this quote from Dr. Berry, and then I’ll kind of simplify right now.  And we’re okay on time.  The dirty secret of passive index funds, whether open end or close end, or ETF, is the distribution of daily dollar value traded among the securities within the indexes they mimic, okay?  So, just keep in mind these are investments that are not actually invested in, like, the Russell 2000 or the S and P.  They merely mimic the performance of that investment.  So, in the Russell 2000 index, for instance, the vast majority of stocks are lower volume, lower value traded stock.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:43:46]

MIKE:  Today, and this is when the article was, so it was a while ago, but today I counted 1,049 stocks that traded less than five million in value during the day.  That is over half and almost half of those 456 stocks traded less than a million dollars during the day.  Yet, through indexation and passive investing, hundreds of billions are linked to stocks like this.  That’s… Josh, go ahead.

JOSH:  So, Mike, just a quick caveat there, can you talk a little bit about what that means if a stock has a low volatility or a low volume per day?

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:44:26]

MIKE:  Yeah, I’ll talk about that in just a second, let me finish this thought and then I’ll break this down, ’cause I want to include the S and P in this and the S and P is the one that really holds the volume that people need to be aware of.  The S and P is no different, the index contains the world’s largest stocks, but still, 266, over half, traded under 150 million today.  That’s an incredibly small amount.  That sounds like a lot, for the average investor, but when you compare it to trillions of dollars in assets globally that are indexed on the stocks, the theater keeps getting more crowded but the exit doors stay the same.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:45:07]

MIKE:  Let’s break this down real quick.  I’m gonna first liken it to, let’s do a golf swing, shall we?  A golf swing or a baseball bat, whatever you want to swing, okay?  And we’re gonna talk about the velocity of some of these investments that could happen.  And this is a bit of some imagery here that’s an over simplification, so that’s my disclaimer here, but I want to illustrate the point.  When you swing a bat or a golf club, the rotation around your hand is a lot slower than at the end of the stick, at the end of the club, at the end of the bat.  Most of the power is done at the end, that’s why we swing trying to get the highest velocity of when we make contact and knock the ball outta the park or, you know, hit the ball to the green, whatever it may be.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:45:57]

MIKE:  With a bicycle, there’s a faster rotation around the edge, the circumference, instead of where the axle may be.  Lower volatility or lower trading on the actual investments themselves means that a wave of those investments, for higher or lower, will have rippling effects to all of the other assets.  Let’s use FANG for example.  FANG, which is one of the higher, that I’ve noticed, higher traded stocks, they’re very, very big on the S and P, that’s Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:46:38]

MIKE:  If these stocks went down, they could have rippling effects to all of the other passive investments that are mimicking the investments.  And if the stock pickers of these investments make interesting, I’m gonna use interesting, decisions on those investments themselves, there’s a huge effect on what’s happening.  Now, let’s talk about baseball, World Series is coming up.  There is 11 players on a baseball team?  I’m sad that I have to even ask this.  How many players are on the field?

CAMERON:  You mean on the field?

MIKE:  Yeah.

CAMERON:  It’s nine.

MIKE:  Is it nine?  Is football 11?  I’m embarrassed to say this [LAUGH] thing.

CAMERON:  Football is 11.

MIKE:  I played football, that’s why [LAUGH].

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:47:20]

MIKE:  Nine players on the field, and their decisions are gonna affect the monetary benefit or disaster of everyone that’s not only watching in the stadium, but on television as well.  Is that a risk that you want to take?  Is passive investing and the accelerated change that will be happening worth the risk when you’re just buying and holding and hoping for the best?  If the average mutual, according to Morning Star, if you take a 40 percent hit, according to the average mutual fund, it’s gonna take you around six years to recover.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:48:04]

MIKE:  That’s not out of the ballpark of what could happen here.  We need to be very aware, in retirement, that six years of waiting for your investments to recover is not a risk that should be taken, and I am shoulding people right now, which I understand is a fundamental basis of manipulation, and I have no intention of manipulating anyone.  I am pleading that people be aware of the ramifications of passive income when you are retired.  When you take a 40 percent hit, your life changes.  It’s that simple.  And if you’re a passive investor banking on a baseball game, and not actually a baseball game, I’m saying this wrong.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:48:48]

MIKE:  If you’re a passive investor based on a couple of stocks and you’re not even trading on those stocks, that is a much riskier situation, in my opinion, than having some sort of strategy that gets you in and out of the market.  Not market timing, but can get you in an out of the market appropriately so you’re not sitting in the stadium waiting for a disaster to happen.  Any comments or questions on what I’m talking about before we continue?

JOSH:  Well, you know, it may come across as a bit bearish, but we at Decker Retirement Planning really are not bearish or bullish, we try to see things as they are and, you know, you may think, well, the stock market’s only gone up and up since 2008.  What if these guys are wrong and what if that bull market extends another 10 years?

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:49:35]

JOSH:  Well, you’re still in your retirement at that point, I mean, average retirement now is, you know, 30 to 40 years in some cases.

MIKE:  Mm-hmm.

JOSH:  So, no matter when it ends, it will end, and the question is how much exposure are you gonna have and how big of a hit could your retirement face at that point?

MIKE:  Yeah, now we used two-sided models.  So, we don’t have to be bearish or bullish because we can make money either way.  And we can talk more about that later and how our two-sided models work.  But it doesn’t make sense to have a one-sided strategy, buy and hold, for a two-sided market that goes up and down.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:50:10]

MIKE:  So, we do invest differently, and that’s an important point that why we don’t care if we’re bearish or bullish because our clients, they have investment strategies that are designed to make money in up or down markets, plain and sample.  I mean, we saw that in Q4, it was a wonderful time for us, very sad for a lot of other people.  When it comes down to this conversation, this is my personal belief, the bubble is getting bigger and bigger.  But we are still in a bullish market.  The technical indicators that I have seen show that we are still on the up and up.  Unless we have a geopolitical event or another black swan event that spooks the market and drives fear into the American people that causes them to pull out or make drastic adjustments, we’re probably fine for the next month or two.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:51:01]

MIKE:  But that’s not my sentiment going into the end of the year or an election or beginning of 2020.  There are a lot of things that could drastically change this bull market to be a bear market.  And I don’t know how big the bear market is going to be.  According to my research, which does back up, Dr. Berry, passive investing is much riskier than people realize.  And I want to be on the forefront of this conversation to make people aware not to scare you into an income annuity or put your mattress under the table, or I’m sorry.  To put your money under the mattress [LAUGH].

CAMERON:  [LAUGH] You shouldn’t be sleepin’ under the table anyway [LAUGH].

JOSH:  It’s not very safe under the table.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:51:41]

MIKE:  But when it comes down to it, for all you retirees and near retirees, I would sincerely invite you to at least come in and have a conversation with us so we can share the research with you, we can share the names and the performances of managers that we’re using and how they operate so you’re not in a crowded theater seeing when you have to exit and hopin’ you can exit in time with all the liquidity issues.  But you can see how we’re set up to capture the best and help protect our clients for the worst.  These are two-sided models, you can read more about them on our website, Decker Retirement Planning dot com under safer investment options.  You can also call right now if you’re 55 years or older and have at least 300 thousand of assets saved up for retirement.  We’ll invite you at a no cost to you and we’ll have a private conversation about these managers, about our strategies, and how you can leave the risky passive investing that’s going on right now with the time that’s still there.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:52:39]

MIKE:  And make the adjustments so the not if but when the markets do crash, and whether it’s a passive investment crash or, I’ll be hyperbolic here and say a Bitcoin crash, whatever it may be, and that was meant to be a joke.  But that your retirement is not affected because of poor choices that were made for you.  That’s my plea.  833-707-3030 or you can go to Decker Retirement Planning dot com and click the button get started on there, it’s a 2,000 dollar offer and value for that introductory visit.  But we’re making it available because we understand the critical nature of the markets, the internals, and where we are right now.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:53:28]

MIKE:  We’ve thrown out most all accepted rules for our markets.  It’s uncharted territory.  Do you have an exit strategy that’s better than just there’s the exit door, I hope I can make it out on time?  Because that’s the way most portfolios are built right now, and it’s scary.  On that note, sorry to be a downer.

JOSH:  [OVERLAP]

MIKE:  Yeah [LAUGH] well, the beautiful part about it is, though, Josh, there is a better way.  There’s a way that you can have transparency and stability.  There’s a way that, yeah, let’s say the markets tank 50 percent next year or just a huge crash.  And there’s absolute chaos and devastation.  Our clients are set to sail through these market crashes unaffected.  Who else can say that?

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:54:15]

MIKE:  And we’re not using income annuities because we have the flexibility to adjust their plans throughout the years, something you can’t do with an income annuity.

JOSH:  So, yeah, I mean, on that note, for Cameron, you deal with the clients on a daily basis that have been with us for a while.  Last year in Q4 when things took a little bit of a dip, how many calls did we get for people panicking about their portfolios?

CAMERON:  You know, none.  In fact, I got a couple of emails sayin’, hey, looks like our two-sided models are working, this is great.

JOSH:  Yeah, and so I think that just kinda speaks to, it might sound a little bit gloomy, but like you said, Mike, there is a better way and that’s what we’re here for.

MIKE:  Oh, yeah.  So, we’ve only got three minutes left here, but in closing remarks, and to kind of wrap up the show here, when it comes down to it, we’re happy to be neutral for you.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:55:06]

MIKE:  Because we’re presenting the information, we have full-time staff doing the research for you, and we have no dog in the fight.  The only thing that we are held accountable to is that we did what’s in your best interest, plain and simple.  And with that high standard, we do invest a lot into R and D, that we want to make sure we have a math-based, principle-based plan that can quantify what your retirement looks like.  For most times, we’re seeing that people are able to earn more money and retire sooner than possible, and that’s a beautiful thing.  Time is our most precious commodity, and we can offer a safer retirement as opposed to just winging it with a pie chart guesser and working on retirement roulette, so to speak.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:55:49]

MIKE:  As we hope for the best and ignore any plan for the worst.  It’s national preparedness month, we’re comin’ up on the end of that, what a great way we could finish off this month by makin’ the call right now and let’s have a conversation at no cost to you, 833-707-3030, must be 55 years or older and have at least 300 thousand of assets saved up for retirement.  But that’s nice and simple, 2,000 dollar offer at no cost to you, 833-707-3030 or go to Decker Retirement Planning dot com where you can get a lot of information, catch this show on the website.  As well as you can catch it on iTunes, Google Play, wherever you get your podcasts.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:56:29]

MIKE:  I also want to highlight real quick, too, we are social.  You can go to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn even, we’re on there and Instagram.  And we’re posting content every day, not only financially speaking but also lifestyle.  We’re bringin’ in and getting information from nutritionists, health professionals, attorneys, lawyers, CPAs, a lot of different cyber security.  We’re pulling a lot of information to try and help you enjoy a safer retirement.  You can subscribe to those just by liking those different pages and things like that.  But I want to highlight one last bit and that’s, on our website under our resources, there’s an eBook called Principles that Govern Proper Retirement Planning.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:57:12]

MIKE:  I highly encourage you to download that eBook as it’s got incredible content that illustrates and gives you the scaffolding on what a retirement should look like.  Cameron, Josh, thanks so much for joining us on the show today.

JOSH:  Thanks, Mike.

CAMERON:  Yeah, it’s been a pleasure, thanks, Mike.

MIKE:  So, stay tuned, same time, same place next week.  A podcast, we are releasing those early Friday mornings.  You can get that at iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts, Soundcloud, as well as on our website we do release that information.  But this is Safer Retirement Radio driven by purebred fiduciaries who want to give you the transparency that you deserve.

 

RR S3 E16 DID YOU DECIDE YOUR RETIREMENT PLA     [00:57:45]

MIKE:  And we’re using a math-based, principle-based approach to do so.  I’m Mike Decker, thanks for stopping by today, and we hope to join you same time, same place next week.  And don’t forget, at Decker Retirement Planning, all the content is available for free, thank you.