Retirement Talk Radio's Podcast

Americans have been falling behind on retirement planning for some time now, and the past two years have only increased the difficulty to save money and grow a nest egg. This recent trend emphasizes the importance of proper planning, and we want to share some of the best retirement strategies to consider in 2023. Much of what Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will discuss in this episode involves tax planning along with income and investment planning. Some of the planning items we’ll cover are spousal IRAs, Roth IRAs, IULs, and strategies for small business owners, and all of these aim to benefit you over the long-term. As we’ll explain throughout our discussion today, tax diversification is every bit as important as investment diversification. Understanding how to best utilize taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-free accounts to build that investment strategy likely will prove to be very beneficial in the years ahead. That’s why take the team approach and rely on the strengths of multiple people to buil

If you go back to October of 2022, you’ll find the worst 12-month period ever for bonds. With the pressure on the economy, bonds struggled right alongside many other investments. The last year showed us many investors move to bonds during periods of volatility, and many of those same people couldn’t understand why bonds deteriorated and values declined. Just three years earlier in 2019, the bond market was king and returns were substantial. So these investments are typically thought of as safer, but as we’ve seen, that’s not always true. In this episode, Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will look at the recent history of bonds and help you better understand how they work and how they are utilized in a well-balanced financial portfolio. Plus, they’ll share alternative investments that people might choose to reduce risk. Redefining Wealth® Custom Blueprint Income Plan: https://redefiningwealth.info/schedule/ Rate, Review and Subscribe to the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retirement-

For the vast majority of retirees, there will come a time when the IRS comes calling and you’re required to start taking money out of qualified retirement accounts. These required minimum distributions (RMDs) are a great planning opportunity and a chance to have some control over taxation, but you need to be prepared ahead of time. In this episode, Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will get back to the basics and provide a great overview on how to plan for your first RMD. With SECURE 2.0 Act moving the age back to 73 this year, there’s even more time to make planning decisions, like moving dollars into a Roth account.   When it comes time to start taking these RMDs, you’ll need to consider the amount that’s required for the year, which accounts you’ll pull that from, and where you’ll distribute the money to. Our Redefining Wealth®  process is strategic in how you approach each of these steps to help you get the most out of the money you’ve saved for retirement while limiting the taxes you’re going t

It’s that time of the year where taxes become top of mind as people look through income over the past year to get their filing in order, but taxes need to be at the forefront of your financial planning throughout the year. The problem is tax planning isn’t simple. It takes years of experience and education to have a thorough grasp on what you owe, especially as your income sources expand.  We want to spend some time discussing taxable income on this episode to help you get a better understanding of what you’ll be responsible for in retirement. Taxes come in many different forms in retirement and it takes more than just a yearly check-up to stay on top of what you owe. Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will take you through the different types of income sources and talk through some of the tools and strategies we utilize with our clients. Planning is a key pillar of Redefining Wealth® and something we should be mindful of on an ongoing basis. That’s why we have a CPA on the team that helps with discu

A declining market will make any retiree uncomfortable, and it could put your future in jeopardy if you haven’t thought through your withdrawal strategy. Many retirees struggle to shift their mindset from accumulation to distribution so let’s talk about how to determine how much you should be taking out of your accounts each year in retirement. In this episode, Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will tell you what the data says and explain the considerations you need to make when structuring a retirement income plan. Maybe the biggest factor you’ll face is sequence risk, which is the risk of encountering different market conditions early in retirement which puts a portfolio in jeopardy of not lasting a lifetime. Once you get into retirement, that sequence of return becomes very important because all that you built could go away just as fast depending on the timing of these withdrawals. Traditional financial strategies say a 4% withdrawal each year is safe, but how accurate is that? Last year’s sugges

The recent passing of SECURE Act 2.0 brought about a long list of planning opportunities, but the change in age for required minimum distributions will give advisors a chance to think outside the box on RMD strategies. Now that the age has increased to 73, retirees and pre-retirees have even more time to evaluate options to start reducing retirement accounts in the most tax efficient way possible. Here’s what you should be asking: what strategies can I put in place that allows my money to be working for me and eliminates my future taxation? In this episode, Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will share a few of the creative solutions that could be on the table for you. Taking a tax-proactive approach is one of the pillars of our Redefining Wealth® process and RMDs provide a great chance to accomplish that. Our tax team can provide a wonderful walk-through and help our clients evaluate ways to reduce these accounts down based on your goals and what you’re trying to achieve. Let’s use these SECURE Act

The start of 2023 brought us another round of retirement changes with SECURE Act 2.0 officially taking effect and there are a number of important provisions that retirees need to be aware of.  In this episode, Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP®  will take you through the changes they’ve identified as being most impactful for retirees and make sure you have a good understanding of what this means moving forward. SECURE Act 2.0 creates additional planning opportunities that you might want and they’ll explain why.  If you haven’t had the chance to look through this new legislation, make sure to listen in to find out more about what’s changing for required minimum distributions, qualified charitable distributions, catch-up contributions, and more. We can’t cover everything in this episode, but this should give you a great starting point for the next conversation with your advisor. Redefining Wealth® Custom Blueprint Income Plan: https://redefiningwealth.info/schedule/   Rate, Review and Subscribe to the

Investors use rate of return to make decisions and evaluate performance all the time, but they often get misled by the average return. With the market showing some positive signs to start the new year, this is a timely topic to discuss on the podcast and we’ll do that by exploring a Kiplinger article about rate of return that we featured in our Weekend Brief.  Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will sort out the differences between the average and actual rate of return to make sure investors know which to use when building a properly diversified portfolio for retirement. It’s not what happens in a short duration, short period of time that you need to focus on. Instead, you want to look at your average rate of return for an extended period. That way you can evaluate solutions during a down market that will help you get back on track for the rate of return necessary to make your plan successful. So we’ll walk you through how we integrate rate of return into the Redefining Wealth® process and show you

Despite seeing a few positive days to begin the new year, investors are still in the midst of the longest bear market in nearly 15 years and plenty of economic doubt and uncertainty remains in 2023. This sustained bear market has made investors weary and wondering what they need to do to not only survive, but thrive in these difficult conditions.   Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will lay out a clearly defined checklist that any investor can follow to position their investments in the best way possible regardless of the current market movement. This structure and framework is core to the Redefining Wealth® planning system and we’ll explain how it all fits into the bear market checklist.   Knowing your time horizons and focusing on the returns that you need to be successful is just a piece of the investment strategy you’ll need to weather whatever this year brings, but knowing exactly how to structure your portfolio will help give you confidence in good times and bad.   Redefining Wealth® Custom Bl

No matter how experienced you are with money, there’s always room to grow and learn. It’s a characteristic you’ll find in the most successful people, including one of the greatest investors of all time, Warren Buffett. Today’s show will focus on the life and career of the man born in the years following the Great Depression, who displayed his entrepreneurial drive at an early age and turned that into one of the great American success stories.   So what can we learn from Buffett that anyone can apply to their own financial plan? Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will look back at the path Buffett has taken during his career and the characteristics that have made him so successful. The things he can teach us aren’t just for the wealthiest investors. Buffett rose up through hard work and strict financial discipline to become what he is today, and that story can benefit us all.   As you’ll learn, Buffett had a fierce desire for independence, and the method for that was money. He chased information and e

The extended downturn in the market has given investors a chance to re-evaluate their portfolio and rethink the strategy that best fits their needs in retirement. Dividend-paying stocks are often a popular choice, especially in times like these, because they can help offset poor returns in a down year. One criteria to use when searching for a strong company is the dividend yield, which is how much a company pays out in dividends each year relative to its stock price. Where we want to help you out on this episode is by putting into perspective how this yield can be helpful for retirees because some companies offer high growth potential but pay out low dividends while other companies don’t grow as quickly but pay higher dividends. The dividend ratio can help you understand what to expect from your investments so Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will make sure you have a good grasp on what this yield is and why it matters for your retirement.  We think there should be more than one way to garner incom

As we prepare to turn the page to 2023, it’s impossible to ignore the state of the market as we close out a second consecutive year with negative returns. Investor concern seems more elevated than normal, which isn’t a surprise because this situation doesn’t occur often. The market rarely sees a down year followed by another down year, but that’s where we find ourselves right now.   We can’t make predictions on the market, but we can extract data from previous down years and try to make educated assumptions. In this episode, Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will provide context for this investment environment to help you better understand why we’re going through this extended down period. We’ll also take the current data and analyst projections to try to determine whether another year like this could happen in 2023.   We’ll also discuss the investment strategy that will best position you in markets like these because 2022 reminded us that even ‘safe’ investments aren’t always protected from signifi

This past year in the market has been difficult for just about everyone. Even conservative investors, who felt comfortable in bonds or fixed income have seen those returns near 40-year lows. As we look ahead to the new year and work with clients to build out diversified portfolios, we want to spend a little time unpacking bonds and helping you understand the pros and cons for investing in individual bonds versus bond funds.   Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will discuss the framework needed to put a well-balanced strategy and help you understand how we help people make their investment decisions. They’ll also explain the pros and cons to bonds and bond funds and share some alternatives that might be worth considering depending on your risk appetite.   So much of bond investing depends on interest rates and the state of the market so we’ll also look ahead at 2023. Will the Fed be able to bring inflation back down and to what level? Let’s dive in and take a closer look at the bond market and how the

Annuities have experienced drastic growth in 2022 as investors look for guaranteed income during a market correction, but should you be allocating money into fixed index annuities or other options? One of the goals of this show is to provide perspective on financial news and trends because what people think they know and what they perceive about things isn’t always accurate, and that’s what we’ll explore today. The problem with this sudden rush into annuities is where did this money get pulled from? As Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will explain on this episode, annuities might not provide the long-term growth many people need to keep up with inflation and this sudden shift in allocation might hurt investors that haven’t been planning properly. To truly analyze whether annuities are a good fit, you have to look under the hood. You want to know what you’re paying in fees, what type of joint income it offers, what the provisions of the contract are, and what balance is best for your portfolio. That

No matter how well you’ve planned, there’s going to be some level of uneasiness for retirees when the economy struggles like it has over the past year. These volatile times motivate people to take the necessary steps to protect their retirement and proper planning can help you do just that. Because the market has been so healthy over the past decade or more, many people have gotten complacent and have stuck with their investment allocation. They haven’t taken the time to explore and understand the diversification strategies that can help mitigate risk and preserve capital, which is an important mind shift that pre-retirees and retirees need to make. But that’s not the only misstep you’ll need to avoid. On this episode, Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will help identify four barriers to break down as you enter this next phase of life and will share the solutions to achieve that. As we’ll talk about, the true value of holistic planning like our Redefining Wealth® process is not just asset allocation

We’ve experienced a lot of market volatility this year and a tremendous rise in interest rates, and people are looking for ways for their dollar to grow to combat inflation. As people explore options for diversifying their portfolio, annuities are becoming a part of that conversation more and more.  In this episode, Laura Stover, RFC® and Darlene Tucker, CFP® will discuss the pros and cons for Fixed Index Annuities (FIA) and use a recent article by David Blanchett to do that. The FIA is a means by which an individual can participate in the gains in the market when it’s going up without actually taking any market risk. And when bond yields are low, the caps on FIAs are going to be relatively low as well. But now that those caps have risen to a level that can provide a nice rate of return, more people are exploring FIAs for income. If you want to know how an annuity might fit into your income plan, join us to learn more about FIAs and the reasons why they can provide downside protection, capture some upside po

The COVID pandemic has changed so much of our perspective on life but will it help drive people to pay more attention to the need for long-term care? At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, the last place you’d want to be is trapped in a nursing home, which is why we want to highlight this pillar of the planning process on this episode.  Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will try to answer those long-term care questions and help determine whether retirees need LTC policies coming out of the pandemic. If you want to understand just how under-prepared most Americans are, let’s start with a couple of stats we found from a recent survey. Only 16% of Americans even have a long-term care plan in place but more than 70% of people over the age of 65 will require a form of long-term care service at some point. Beyond that, fewer than half of the people surveyed had worked with a financial professional to address these needs. Everyone has a different reason for not prioritizing this in the past, but many people

As we prepare for the end of the year, there are numerous financial conversations that will happen as part of the Redefining Wealth® planning process and we want to get you thinking about one of those on this episode.    Many people have sold out of investments this year to move into cash because of volatility and uncertainty, and those choices will have an impact on your taxes for the next year. But even if you’ve been holding your mutual funds throughout the year, you still might have some phantom income that will be taxed because of the moves made within the fund by the money manager. Now is the time to get on top of these things and discuss your obligations and find out if there are any proactive steps you can be taking.    Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will help you get prepared on this episode by taking you through the factors that most commonly affect taxation when investing in mutual funds like capital gains, harvesting, turnover ratio and more. Make sure you’re mindful of these differen

Not many people expected 2022 to turn out the way it has from an economic standpoint as inflation, rising interest rates, and market declines have been in the headlines all year. The uneasiness has people asking us to explain how it got to this point and when we’ll start to see a turnaround. We’ll try to do that on this episode as Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will spend some time touching on a few of the things they discussed with clients during a recent Investor’s Forum. When you look for the root of the issues, all we need to do is go back to the impact COVID had on employment, supply chain issues, and the stimulus money that was injected into the economy. We are now paying the bill for everything that’s taken place the last year or two, and with too much money chasing too few goods, we’ve seen the worst market performances in decades to go with soaring inflation  But history has shown us over the past century that the stock market will rebound and we’ll share some of that data on this show.

The steep decline in the stock market and rising inflation is impacting all Americans but no one is feeling it quite like people that are nearing retirement or those that recently made the transition to retirement. The drop in account value paired with the decline in purchasing power can create a lot of uneasiness about retirement.  On this episode, Laura Stover, RFC® and Michael Wallin, CFP® will help you get a better grasp on retirement income and how vulnerable it is to these unprecedented times. Moving from the accumulation to the preservation and retirement income stage of your life requires you to change your mindset and that can be difficult for people. Planning can ensure you’re making the best decisions about Social Security, pensions, and where to withdraw the money you need.  Instead of feeling like you have to make a move out of fear, people should channel those feelings and use them for motivation to learn what you can do to protect your finances. There’s never one solution or product that is alw