Sinopsis
The Common Sense Financial Podcast is all about finances, mindset and personal growth. The goal is to help you make smart choices with your money in your home and in your business. Securities offered through Kalos Capital, Inc. and Investment advisory services offered through Kalos Management, Inc. located at 11525 Park Wood Circle Alpharetta, GA 30005. Skrobonja Financial Group is not a subsidiary of Kalos Capital, Inc. nor Kalos Management, Inc.
Episodios
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6 Tips For Choosing the “Right Fit” Financial Advisor
02/08/2023 Duración: 15minAre you part of that 68% of people who would like to have a personalized financial plan, but aren’t sure where to find a financial advisor? What should you pay attention to when trying to get a financial planning expert to help you, and you’re evaluating different options? In this new episode of the Common Sense Financial Podcast, host Brian Skrobonja shares six factors you should keep into consideration and look at when going through different financial advisor options. According to a May 2022 PR Newswire survey, 68% of people would like to have a personalized financial plan, but they’re not sure where to find a financial advisor. Brian sees information-gathering and understanding that planning isn’t the same as investing are the biggest mental hurdles of financial planning. When it comes to picking a financial advisor, there are six primary factors Brian suggests looking at. A 2022 study found that 80-90% of advisors fail in the first three years of practice – the main reason being the steep learning curve
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Make Health Planning Part of Your Retirement Planning, with Regan Archibald
26/07/2023 Duración: 53minYou feel healthy so everything is okay, right? Have you ever thought that health planning should be part of your retirement planning efforts? If you’ve answered ‘yes,’ pay close attention to Regan Archibald! Regan joins host Brian Skrobonja to discuss how people should approach health planning, the world of preventive care, the role of nutrition, and why longevity medicine is something you should be mindful of. Regan Archibald kicks off the conversation by sharing his origin story. In his work with entrepreneurs, Regan has found that when people focus on creating more balance and focus on their health, their business improves – and so does everything else. One of the major health issues both Regan and Brian have noticed is that many people think that if they feel okay, everything is okay… Regan stresses the importance not only to focus on a certain problem (like high blood pressure) but on trying to understand its cause (so, asking “Why is my blood pressure high?”). Regan illustrates how longevity medicine a
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An Innovative – and Life-Changing – Way to Look at Retirement, with Dean Jackson
31/05/2023 Duración: 57minWhat comes to mind when you think about retiring? Is it enjoying your "golden years?" That's an outdated approach, says today's guest Dean Jackson! He joins host Brian Skrobonja to discuss a new way to think about retirement – and how doing things this way will change your life – the concept of "pre-tiring," two types of economy, and what "money hobby" and self-managing companies are all about. The idea of the conversation with Dean came to Brian as the result of conversations he has been having with clients, plus the increased longevity and the outdated models that are still presented as the tools to approach retirement planning. From an early age, Dean realized the difference between what Dan Sullivan calls the time & effort economy, and the results economy. In the first type of economy. you get paid a fixed amount for your time and effort, whereas in the latter. you’re paid by the results you create. Dean has been “pre-tiring” since 1999, splitting his time between Canada and Florida. For Dean, trying
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The 4 Biggest Obstacles to Effective Estate Planning
24/05/2023 Duración: 14minLife when you’re gone… an uncomfortable conversation most people prefer to avoid. Why isn’t that a good idea? How can estate planning help you ensure that things are taken care of once you aren’t around anymore? Listen to learn about big mistakes people make, the different elements that make up the estate plan puzzle, the three primary areas of cash flow, and the type of plan you should have in place. When it comes to end of life financial planning, many people tend to put it off because it’s an uncomfortable conversation to have. Even though the process for end of life planning is relatively simple in nature, Brian recommends getting professional help to deal with the details, which can be complex. Despite every situation being different, there are several core aspects of estate planning that everyone should consider. The first has to do with title and legal work. Brian has noticed that many people have a complete misunderstanding of the role legal work plays within their planning. Then, there’s life insura
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Longevity: The Retirement Problem No One Is Discussing
17/05/2023 Duración: 14minDid you know that a good part of American households haven’t thought about retirement planning? When it comes to planning for retirement, there are some key concepts to understand and three traps you should do your best to avoid. Listen to learn why a money increase doesn’t always equal a lifestyle enhancement, the three things people often look at but that come back to bite them later on, and how you can effectively plan for retirement and protect your money. As life expectancy increases, people will be finding themselves needing to save more money for retirement. Brian believes that it’s going to be possible to be retired for as many years as one has worked, because people are living longer than ever before. According to a 2019 retirement confidence survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, more than half of American households are at risk of running out of money in retirement due to the lack of savings and the unpredictability of the stock market. If you look back and think about how much money y
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In Financial Planning, Consider Your ‘Fuel Tank of Capability’
10/05/2023 Duración: 14minYou can live without saving money, and you can live with debt, but you cannot live without cash flow. In fact, if you want your personal finance to flourish, cash flow is a key element you need to focus on – passive income too. Why is that the case? Find out about critical personal financing missteps you should avoid making, what to focus on to measure financial progress and happiness, and the key traits you can learn from the happiest and most successful people to win more in personal finance. Just like many other areas of life, personal finance too is dependent on your own tank both from a mental, physical, and resources standpoint. Trying to do too much with their resources is one of the most common personal finance missteps people make. There’s a tendency of segregating financial goals into silos and of gravitating towards what looks easiest over what is often best – which typically leads to personal finance goals not being achieved. Brian believes that the key to maximizing your capabilities should be o
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Different Approach of Financial Planning Addresses ‘the Missing Middle’
03/05/2023 Duración: 15minEmergencies and retirement. This is what we're taught to save for. But what if you created a different system, which allowed you to pay for the expenses you will incur between now and retirement age – without losing the ability to build wealth? Find out why you may need to rethink your financial planning approach and what you should do about the “Missing Middle.” According to popular opinion, sound financial planning advice typically consists of two main steps: saving for emergencies and saving for retirement. Brian found this to be slightly misleading because of the phenomenon he refers to as “The Missing Middle.” Think about how life generally goes: there are car payments, furniture, credit cards, tuition… you also have money going into an account that you can’t touch until you’re 60 and then, before you know it, you have thousands of dollars of debt. And that’s by following general advice. However, opting for a less traditional and more customized approach allows you to pay for the expenses you incur betw
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Five Assumptions That May Leave You Short of Your Retirement Needs
08/06/2022 Duración: 09minRetirement isn’t a thing that happens. It's a time of life that needs to be planned for. When it comes to planning for retirement, there are a huge number of assumptions that people make about what’s going to happen and when, but what if those assumptions are wrong? Find out why you may need to rethink your retirement plans. Most people envision retirement as a destination. A fixed point in time where their pension or Social Security begins, but retirement is a transition, not a timestamp. Planning for the rest of your life requires certainty, not hope and optimism. Most retirees retire while relying on things that are out of their control, and on assumptions made in the past. They assume the rate of return, their income needs, their life expectancy, inflation rates and tax liabilities. Take longevity. The world of health and medicine is likely to make a major transformation. We are already seeing more people live beyond the age of 100. What if your retirement plan had to take into account you living an addi
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Do You Want a Tax Planner or a Tax Preparer?
01/06/2022 Duración: 11minWould you rather look back on the past and regret what happened or would you rather look to the future and make plans so that you can choose the outcomes you want? The latter of course! But when it comes to taxes, most people take the first option without even realizing there are better choices. Learn about the difference between tax preparation and tax planning, and how you can create a comprehensive wealth strategy for your future, but you have to start now. There's a huge difference between a tax preparer and a tax planner. Generally speaking, a CPA is a historian who's looking backwards over the last year's tax situation using tax software for determining whether you owe or whether you'll receive a refund. If you’re getting a refund, they give you the good news with a smile. If not, they make the suggestion of an IRA contribution to lessen the pain. With a tax deductible account, you are allowed to defer taxes on contributions until the age of 59 and a half. You can’t access that money before that age wi
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Making Sense of Social Security with Rich Grawer
25/05/2022 Duración: 47minSocial Security can be a maze of rules, exceptions, and formulas and can feel almost impossible to navigate for most people. That’s why Rich Grawer is back to talk about making sense of Social Security and the common sense guidelines that allow you to maximize your Social Security benefit and minimize your tax liability while in retirement. Social Security as the system is an income replacement system. It is not meant to be your sole source of income in retirement. The first thing to understand is that the system is not meant to replace your whole income, and earners can expect to receive between 35% and 54% of their working wages in retirement. There are three different ages you begin taking Social Security. The first is age 62, the second is age 65 when Medicare becomes available, and the third is your full retirement age. The advantage to waiting until your full retirement age is that you can work and earn at the same time as receiving your full Social Security benefit. One recent change in the past few
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The Wealth Building Strategies of Entrepreneurs and Real Estate Investors Revealed
18/05/2022 Duración: 11minIt’s no secret that entrepreneurs and real estate investors are responsible for the majority of the wealth creation in the world, but did you know it’s possible to take the same strategies they use and apply them to your own investments? Learn how to multiply your wealth through the power of leverage and how to use the idea of internal and external rates of return to acquire assets that not only appreciate but generate cash flow at the same time. Many investors have a contradictory attitude when it comes to investments and leverage. With their investments, they favor risk but when it comes to leveraging they adopt a scarcity mindset. Entrepreneurs and real estate investors are the biggest wealth creators in the world, but the typical investor can benefit from using the same strategies they use. There are two primary reasons those two types of people create so much wealth. The first is they effectively leverage other people’s money. The second is they create cash flow using internal and external rates of retu
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Exit Planning Secrets From Randy Long
11/05/2022 Duración: 43minThe sale or transition of a business is a messy, complex, and time consuming process. If you want to make sure it’s a success and doesn’t tear your family apart, you have to make sure it’s done right. Randy Long reveals the biggest misconceptions around selling a business and how to make sure your children still want to eat Thanksgiving dinner together afterward. Randy is a lawyer by trade with a background in finance, having practiced for the past 25 years. Around half way into his career in law, Randy started working with the father of exit planning, John Brown. Around 9 years ago, Randy and his daughter started a separate consulting firm focused on helping multi-family, multi-owner businesses get prepared to sell. Many business owners have no idea what it takes to prepare a business to be sold. Working in the business and getting the day-to-day tasks done can make it hard to step out of that role and plan for the future. That’s typically where Randy comes in. Transition periods can be quite long, with mos
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Generate More Retirement Income and Keep More of Your Money
04/05/2022 Duración: 11minThere is a key mindset shift that many people fail to make when they retire and it can cost them thousands of dollars from their investment portfolio. Hear about Hypothetical Helen and how her plan to pay off her mortgage with money from her 401k once she retires actually puts her further away from her goals, and what the most optimal solution for cash flow in retirement is. Retirement in its purest form is simply the creation of passive income sources used to support your cash flow requirements. Everything revolves around your cash flow in retirement, yet many people lose sight of this fact and overcomplicate their investment strategy. Take the example of Helen. Helen was to have $40,000 per year to supplement her Social Security income. She has a million dollars in a 401k and has a mortgage of $200,000 with a payment of $14,400 annually, and her home is valued at $500,000. Her plan is to eliminate her mortgage with funds from her 401k as well as make some renovation while living off a 4% draw each year f
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The Five Biggest Regrets People Have About Retirement
27/04/2022 Duración: 08minRegret and retirement don’t have to go together, but for many people they often do. Learn about the top five regrets people have in retirement and how you can set yourself up so instead of feeling like you should have done more, you can retire with confidence. When it comes to retirement, there are almost always things that you’re going to regret. Investments you missed the boat on or investments that went sour. Unfortunately, there is no crystal ball to make retirement planning easy. There are five common regrets that most retirees have and the first is not starting soon enough. The sooner you begin to save the longer your wealth has to compound over time. In addition to saving sooner, retirees often wish they had begun planning for the transition to retirement sooner as well. There is more to planning your retirement than just having a large investment account and picking the start date. Many retirees, mere weeks before retiring, find out there's much more to it and wish they had started years earlier. The
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Most Important Retirement Number (Not How Much Money Is In Your Portfolio) - Encore
20/04/2022 Duración: 10minMost people think about what investments they should be making or what stocks they should have in their portfolio when they approach retirement age, but they are going about it backwards. Brian Skrobonja breaks down the calculations you need to make in order to understand how ready you are for retirement and what your retirement plan needs to factor in to be truly financially free. How do you know when it's safe to retire? The answer depends on your plan and understanding the most important numbers in retirement. Success is the result of following a plan to fruition. The more specific the plan is, the higher the probability of reaching the goal. If you’re on the cusp of retirement, you may have a number of new questions and concerns starting to enter your mind. Are you invested in the right assets for retirement? How much should you be withdrawing from your accounts? Do you have enough saved up to last your whole retirement? If you search the internet, you’ll end up finding a lot of often contradictory advic
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When A Pension Lump Sum Is Better Than An Annuity Payment
13/04/2022 Duración: 11minHow do you pick between a lump sum payment from your pension and an annuity? A lot of that decision depends, but if you want to have control over your financial assets, a lump sum is often the better option. Find out when you should take a lump sum option instead of an annuity, why insurance is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle, and how to ensure your family doesn’t lose out either way. The choice between a pension annuity and a lump sum often comes down to which provides the greatest income, but that’s not the only factor you need to consider. We're seeing fewer and fewer pensions than we did 20 years ago because of the systemic issues with defined benefit programs. They are often replaced with defined contribution programs like 401(k)s. People used to retire at the age of 65 and could expect to live another 10 to 15 years on average. Today, people are retiring sooner and living longer than ever, and that is making the traditional approach to retirement unsustainable. Historically, pensions ai
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How To Create The Perfect Investment Portfolio
06/04/2022 Duración: 12minWhen it comes to investing for retirement, following the status quo investment advice is one of the worst things you can do. Most people are deferring taxes in their 401k, storing money in a bank, and working to pay off their mortgage, all without realizing that doing those things won’t move them closer to what they really want in retirement. Find out how to ditch the status quo and build an investment portfolio that allows you to retire without having to worry about income, taxes, or what’s happening in the stock market. There are no perfect investments that are right for everyone. Financial unicorns don’t exist, but it is possible to create a portfolio of investments that accomplish everything you would want from that one investment. In order to find what you’re looking for in an investment, you have to know what you’re looking for. You need to know what your goals are and what investment features you need to accomplish those goals. People often default to doing things that don't always align with what the
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Is Bitcoin the New Gold or a New Safe Haven?
30/03/2022 Duración: 11minGold has been a source of wealth for thousands of years and a safe haven in uncertain times, but with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin coming onto the scene, is that about to change? Before we can answer that question, we need to understand the history of the US dollar and how gold has fared over the past 100 years to get an idea what the future may hold. Find out what makes Bitcoin so special and why it may be the gold of the 21st century. A growing number of people believe Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies could soon replace gold as a safe haven against a depreciating dollar. Compared to the other cryptocurrencies, one of the unique features that sets Bitcoin apart is the fact that the total supply is structurally restricted to 21 million coins. This is a hard cap on the total amount of Bitcoins that will ever be in existence and is one of the reasons why so many investors are bullish on the future value of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has been often compared to gold. Gold has been used to store value during uncertain t
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You Don’t Need Another Investment, You Need the Right Plan to Achieve Your Wealth Goals
23/03/2022 Duración: 11minThere is no silver bullet investment that’s right for everyone, so beware of financial professionals recommending a particular investment or product without first understanding where you are in your life and what your money goals are first. That’s essentially like prescribing a treatment before your doctor diagnoses your problem! Find out what questions you should be asking yourself and your financial advisor to figure out what you’re trying to achieve and the best strategy for you to get it done. Discussing investment options with an advisor without first having a strategic plan in place is like asking for a prescription without a diagnosis. The majority of people are confused about how to approach their financial situation, but the people that need to hear this message the most are the most likely ones who think that this message is for someone else. It's important to know why you're building the wealth and not just learning about what investments to add to your portfolio. Asking about a specific type of
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An Alternative Banking Option - Encore
16/03/2022 Duración: 19minBrian Skrobonja breaks down the myths and the mechanics of Infinite Banking and how this strategy allows you to take control of your cash flow and finance larger purchases while still allowing your money to earn dividends and interest. Learn how Infinite Banking works, why you need to forget what you think you know about whole life insurance, and whether this strategy is right for you. In order to understand the concept of Infinite Banking, you have to set aside the common understanding of how life insurance works. You also have to realize that there are pros and cons with every financial strategy and there isn’t any silver bullet that everyone should adopt. Infinite Banking, also known as Privatized Banking, Cash Flow Banking, or Bank On Yourself, utilizes a specially designed whole life insurance contract. If you search for those terms you’re likely to find a huge number of articles on how the process works (or doesn’t work) because the strategy has been around for years. When you look at the course of so