12.2.22: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

12.2.22: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Producer:
Any examples used are for illustrative purposes only and do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs, and may not be suitable for all investors. It is not intended to predict the performance of any specific investment and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy.

Producer:
Welcome to Rest Assured Retirement with your host, Jeff Holmes. Jeff is a licensed fiduciary and financial advisor who always places his client's needs first. Jeff works hard each day to educate Americans like you on how to reach the financial freedom they've worked so hard for. And he can help you too. So now let's start the show. Here's Jeff Holmes.

Jeff Holmes:
Welcome back to the show, everyone. This is Jeff Holmes, a certified financial fiduciary and a certified retirement counselor. I'm joined here by Matt McClure, our producer and co-host. How are you doing today, Matt?

Producer:
I'm doing very well, Jeff. I hope you had a great holiday. I know I ate way too much. And here more than a week later, I am just about recovered.

Jeff Holmes:
So yeah, yeah, I think we all do that. We had the daughter and son-in-law over, but they just came from their his parents, so they did a little bit of double dipping. So they probably slept for about two days after that.

Producer:
So I can get too much turkey at that point.

Jeff Holmes:
That's exactly right. So, so glad you're all back. And we've got a great show today. And first off, we like to talk about our website, which is, at RestAssuredRetirement.com. And that's where you can go to see our past podcasts, if you'd like, which are just episodes from the show or listen to it wherever you do listen to your podcast. Also, you can set up a complimentary consultation and also we can be you can get in touch with us with certain questions you may have at 480 454 9191. So please reach out to us. We love hearing from our listeners. So you're going to hear this for the last time and that's what's coming up this Wednesday on December 7th, as you hear our prerecorded show on Sunday. And that is Medicare's annual enrollment period will be ending on that day. So that's just a few days away, folks. So if you really want to make sure that you're in the right plan, make sure there's not been any adjustments to some of your like your drug plan, the Part D or anything like that. You may want to get in touch with whoever is helping you out with your Medicare. We have Jocelyn, who's our Medicare specialist and our office. He does a great job and that's not coming from me. It's coming from her clients who let me know that on a regular basis. So if you want to find out and have a medicare 101, she'll be more than happy to help you out with that.

Jeff Holmes:
Again, remember, December 7th is the deadline, so get it done before then. So let us know all your Medicare needs and we'll will hook you up with Jocelyn and you'll be good to go. So what are we what are the topics We're going to be talking about the different segments of our show. First off, we always like to start off with the quote of the week, and then we're going to get you on New Year's resolutions a little early this year and we'll talk about the things that will help you keep your New Year's resolution. And you really want to hang on for that one. That's a good one. And what retirees fear the most. And that is something that you probably can guess that you just have to think about what you fear the most in being retired. So that's a great segment to listen to. Also, we have a Costco for the week and we'll get into some important tax updates. And if we have time, we might get into how to stop the bleeding in your bonds. We've got a lot to go through today. Obviously, we were off last week and you heard I recorded show that we'd already done. So you got like reruns of Lucy or something like that. So you can you can get that. And everybody who has a you know, I love Lucy that show, you know what I'm talking about.

Producer:
And now for some financial wisdom, it's time for the Quote of the Week.

Jeff Holmes:
I'm going to leave the financial wisdom, the quote of the week to Matt to read that and go through that.

Producer:
Yeah, no problem. I will do that and I'll try to, you know, not be like Lucy and that I won't try to shove a bunch of chocolates in my mouth or something like that. That's what one of my favorite episodes when the, the conveyor belt just goes wacky.

Jeff Holmes:
Yeah, yeah, I remember that one. And then the one with Harpo Marx showing up and they're doing the mirrors. Yes. Those are the two. Those two scenes right there. Those those made that show as hilarious.

Producer:
Just absolute, absolute classics. And we know that. Rest assured, Retirement right up there with I Love Lucy. So. So there we go.

Jeff Holmes:
I'm not so sure about that. Well, you never, never try to put yourself on the same page as Harpo or Lucy, either one.

Producer:
I just need a blonde. A blonde wig. I can be I can be Harpo. A curly one.

Jeff Holmes:
That's right.

Producer:
There we go. All right. So our Quote of the Week this week comes from a guy who knows a thing or two about money. His name, Dave Ramsey. You may have heard of him and he said, quote, You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you. Very profound.

Jeff Holmes:
Yes. And very true. Very true. Yes. So that one is a good one to really if you have to go back and rerun this, listen to that again, very important. So now if you are in the retirement red zone, meaning that you plan to retire in the next five years, or maybe you have been retired for the last five years. Please give us a call so we can help you strengthen your retirement plan, which and this is something that I've run into. And I've got to clarify this. Sometimes we'll say financial plan on the show and our people will come in. And when I meet with them, they'll say, Yeah, I've got a finance. I'll ask them, Where's your retirement plan? And what they'll do is they say, Well, here it is, and it's basically a financial plan. So you're probably wondering what are the differences between the two? Because there is a difference and it's pretty obvious and maybe subtle when you first look at that. And so what I did is I did the the easy thing. I went to Investopedia and I got the definition of both. So this won't be coming for me. But what you'll find is if you go there and type those two and you'll get the sum of these bits of information. Now, a financial plan, as it's defined in an Investopedia is documents an individual has on their long term financial goals and goals, and that also creates a strategy for achieving them. The plan should be comprehensive. Yes, it should, but also individualized. And that means everybody's got a different situation to reflect the individual's personal and family situations, risk tolerance and future expectations.

Jeff Holmes:
The plan starts with a calculation of the person's current net worth cash flow and ends with a strategy. And as we go through the New Year's resolutions, you'll get some hints of this about what a financial plan does. Now, what's a retirement plan? What's the difference there? Well, retirement planning refers to financial strategies of saving investments and ultimately distributing the money meant to sustain oneself during retirement. And that's coming from Investopedia. There's many popular investment vehicles that you actually start when you're doing your financial plans before the retirement red zone. And retirement planning, as they say, takes into account not only assets and income, but also future expenses, liabilities and life expectancy. So it's a little different than the financial plan. So you're probably wondering what's the big difference between the two? And I'm going to you know, you just have to think about that one for a little bit. And what we'll do is we'll go through a few things to explain that difference, to make it a little bit more clear to you. So when you first have the financial plan, you may be in your twenties and thirties or forties and that that's get started and you start in something that they call the accumulation phase of your life or your accumulating retirement savings, and you're thinking, well, then your accumulated retirement savings, that same as a retirement plan. Well, not quite. Hold on for just a second. I know you're asking that. So what happens is you're an accumulation stage. So when you're accumulating things and many of you have for one case which are very famous for people getting their contributions matched by their employer, that's a great thing that they do.

Jeff Holmes:
But they also do something also really great. And they allow you to do something called dollar cost averaging. And what does a dollar cost averaging means? It's just a fancy term that says, well, you you put it in the same amount every month and that's what you do in your 4k. And when you're doing that, you know the market's going up and down all the time. So what happens is you put money in and then you are basically buying either high or low. Now when you buy high, you're going to buy less shares. When you buy low, you're buying more shares. Well, that concept of doing that consistently over year after year will give you a larger nest egg. As we talk about, it always works out for your benefit. So that's the accumulation phase. Now there's a fancy term called de accumulation, which is the phase you get into when you are going to retire. And that means it's the reversal, as the Investopedia says, the reversal of accumulation as by selling the assets of a business. So you're pulling your assets out. And that's the example they gave in this case. You're going to be seeing that coming from your 41k or IRAs, whatever the case may be. At that point, you are selling, not buying. So that's the opposite of getting a larger nest egg. And how does that work? So think about the good years we've had. We've been we've had the longest bull run of all time before all this happened in 2022.

Jeff Holmes:
And what happens is the we're just doing great. Now it's time to start selling. And heaven forbid that you are going to retire this year because when you're selling and not buying, which what you were doing, you were buying during the accumulation phase, now you have to sell those assets to live on, most likely. And when you sell those and the market is going up and down, it goes up. You have what we call profit taking because you sold those when they were at high level. Now, just imagine 20, 22 happening and this time to take the money out again. When you pull money out at that point in time, you are now taking on what they call a loss because you're losing money. So let's just say, for instance, that you have. Lost 15% this year and you needed 5% from your account. Well, what happens is that's a -20% in your first year of first year of retirement. Now, how does that make you feel? You know, you're already 20% through your. Retirement savings in that case. And you're hoping, boy, the thing has got to start coming back. So we're going to continue on with this and your New Year's resolutions that will. And what we can do to help you keep those. And we'll be back here in the next segment in a few minutes. Again, this Jeff Holmes with Rest Assured Retirement. RestAssuredRetirement.com That's where you can go for the free consultation or call in at 480 454 9191. See you in a few.

Producer:
You're listening to Rest Assured Retirement. To schedule your free no obligation consultation with Geoff visit RestAssuredRetirement.com. You're listening to Rest Assured Retirement. Here's Jeff.

Jeff Holmes:
Welcome back, everyone. We just were going through the differences between retirement planning and having a financial plan and those differences. And as I was ending up in the last segment, as we were talking about the differences in what happens in both of those plans, your financial plan is typically when you're accumulating money and then the retirement plan is about accumulation or basically taking money out. So you're either saving or taking money out. So what happens if you're starting to take money out? And we were just discussing 2022, and if you had taken 5% out that year and it also went down 15%, that's not a very good place to be. And what they call that and the fancy term called sequence of returns risk is you're experiencing a sequence of returns risk. If the market had been up your first year of retirement and gone up 20% and you pulled out five, you would have been 15% ahead. Instead, this year, it went down 15 and you also pulled out 5%. That would be a -20. So having that happen early on in retirement can negatively affect you down the road. And that's why we have the software for doing retirement planning and showing you those cases, both those cases happening and seeing where you'll be.

Jeff Holmes:
And the crazy thing about this is most people come in and they say, bring your retirement plan. They come in with a financial plan which has retirement strategies and all these things in there. So I understand the confusion there. But what happens is they're typically in like a 6040 split. And what that means is they have 60% of their money in equities, which are stocks and mutual funds and ETFs and those all those types of equity investments. And then they have 40% in bonds. So the idea about having that set up is that you are basically going to have a situation where if the market goes down, the bonds are going to hopefully hold the hold the line there and you won't lose as much. Well. And I've heard clients come in saying, well, I've been told that this is not normal for this to happen. And then we look back in at 2008. The same thing happened. So the last two serious bear markets, which we are in a bear market, is. Same thing happened. The last two times. So I know it's not normal, but maybe it's the new normal, as they say. What do you think there, Matt? I see you smiling.

Producer:
It could be. You know, it's stranger things have happened, I guess.

Jeff Holmes:
Yeah. We all hope it's not the new normal. It could be, you know. So something to plan for in the future. So, really, What's that? What is that all telling you? Well, back in the day, the 6040 plan did work. And why did it work? 20 years ago. What did most people have to provide guaranteed income at that point? Besides Social Security?

Producer:
I'm going to go take a wild stab at it and say a pension.

Jeff Holmes:
Oh, yeah, That's a that's a name, you know. You know, you think about all the names of dinosaurs. Well, that's going to have to be added to that, I think, because it's becoming one.

Producer:
They're definitely on the endangered species list at this point.

Jeff Holmes:
Yes. Yeah. Not many of those around at all. And if you have that, that's very good. That will make you much happier because retirement planning is about the income at that point. And hopefully it's guaranteed income if it's not, not so good because. You have to ask yourself if it's not guaranteed income. And you have your. The market going up and down like we just talked about. You have to think about how are you going to be feeling? Are you going to be stressed and sad in retirement? Or do you want to be relaxed and happy in retirement? So you have to ask yourself those questions. So. I do know that the people that have pensions and have Social Security coming in are the people that have set up their own personal pension, as we call it. They have guaranteed coming in, income coming in. I do know for a fact that they're much happier. And how do I know that you can see it in their face when they walk in and there's articles written about it. The Wall Street Journal All these people write about how it affects people. Because if you think about your whole life, you always had income coming in and then all of a sudden you're having to live on your savings.

Jeff Holmes:
And that's a. Whoops. That's a you know. Something. That takes some getting used to. So having guaranteed income is very important. Now. All that being said, we're going to touch on this a little bit later, but we're going to get into a little bit on this segment. It'll probably run into the next segment also about New Year's resolutions that we can. Help you keep. And these are going to be a little bit towards having your financial plan. You'll notice now that you understand the differences. If you don't understand the differences, please go to rest Assured Retirement dot com and rewatch the show or go to wherever you watch your podcast and then go to that to rewatch that. The first one. New New Year's resolution is to calculate your net worth. Any changes that you need to make become more obvious after doing this calculation. It does bring things to the surface when we're doing planning. So what you do is you start totaling up your assets that your account balances your real estate, that you may own, that anything of value there and subtract your liabilities. Which could be your mortgages, any debts or anything you owe. And that will create a clear picture of what you call your net worth.

Jeff Holmes:
I think that's the first thing to do. The second thing is check up on your retirement accounts. Be sure to take advantage of any contribution matches offered by your employer's retirement plan. I did mention earlier before that many employers are matching your contributions in some form or fashion and that that is something you want to at least make sure that you get you put enough in to get that contribution. It's huge. Helps pay taxes down the road. If you are 50 or older, you can also contribute. An additional 7000 a year to an IRA. Now, there's obviously a few guidelines you have to follow in doing that. So if you want to find out a little bit more about that, you can call it at 480 454 9191. I'd be glad to go through that with you. Now, if you're self-employed, you can get in touch with us about setting up and contributing to what they call a Sep IRA. What does SEP stand for? Well, it stands for and I kind of laugh this called a simplified employee pension. I don't know how they came up with the name, but it's to make it different. Matt Did you know how they came up with that name?

Producer:
No, I just sort of always assumed it stood for self employed, you know, like it was a weird way to, to abbreviate that. But, you know, shows how much I know sometimes.

Jeff Holmes:
Yeah, Well, and quite honestly, there's not a lot to do with having a pension with that. So it's it is a simplified employee pension and you can read the background on that. But those are great ways where you can get a lot more money than just 7000 a year into those if you're self employed. So I'm going to go through one more point here and then we'll go on to our break and that's update your savings goals. And what that means is determine how much you plan to set aside each month for your future. And Warren Buffett says don't save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after savings. And that was on our quote of the week not that long ago. And so that's very important to follow that I'm going to stop there. We'll continuing on and New Year's resolutions that we can help you keep. Coming up in a few minutes. See you back in a few.

Producer:
You're listening to Rest Assured Retirement with Jeff Holmes visit RestAssuredRetirement.com. You're listening to Rest Assured Retirement.

Jeff Holmes:
This Jeff Holmes welcome back to Rest Assured Retirement. And what we're doing is we're going through the New Year's resolutions that we can help you keep. And like I said before earlier on the show, you can actually go to RestAssuredRetirement.com If you'd like to set up a consultation and get explanations on some of this or just need a second opinion and then you can also call 480 454 9191. Also if you have just some simple questions or anything you'd like to ask. We do enjoy hearing from our listeners. We just finished up about updating your savings goals. We're going on to the next step of your New Year's resolutions and what we can do to help you keep those is, first of all, just make a plan to pay off your debts and decide how much you can. Pay towards any of your loans and debts and mortgage accounts. Consider paying some extra. Principal towards your mortgage payment each month, for instance. By doing so, you'll earn a risk free retirement on the money equal to your mortgage interest rate and cut down on the number of years it will take to pay off the mortgage. Now we're going to get into paying off a mortgage here a little bit later. And that's one where you really have to give some thought. Nowadays, it's not as simple as it used to be. There's. And the main reason has to do with interest rates. So a lot of people have these mortgages at 2.6, five or less than 3%, and now they're getting three, four, five, 6% on their savings.

Jeff Holmes:
Depending on where they've put that. And so you have to consider maybe doing what they call an arbitrage and maybe keeping money in the savings, earning more interest, and then use that in the future to pay off that mortgage. So we'll get into that a little bit more in just a second. Number five on that list of New Year's resolutions that we can help you keep is rebalance your portfolio. The stock market always has its ups and downs and there's some sectors that overperform in. Some sectors underperform. 2022 is pretty grim, as they say for most of them. So by yeah, that was a tough year. Everything was going down. But what we can do is we can talk about rebalancing your portfolio to its original or updated asset allocation. So if you're wondering what asset allocation means, that means the percentage of money you have in. Risky assets versus not as risky assets. They all tend to be at risk for the most case. And you can take steps also to lock in your gains from the sectors. And if you don't know how to do that, give us a call and we'll be glad to show you how that's done. And those those sectors with the best returns are the ones you want to do that with, because that gives you some gains and not losses unless you unless you need some losses for your tax return.

Jeff Holmes:
So that's that The problem with that, too. They only let you do 3000 a year. So you have to be careful on that one. Hopefully you don't take too many losses and then also you can purchase shares in sectors that have lagged behind, which means you're buying low. So if you rebalance your portfolio with a broker, you've got to remember that when they do that, it should be a free service. It shouldn't be something you have to pay for. And if they're going to charge a fee, we can also do speak with you on how you can do that. With no fee. We recommend that you work with someone first off, that has your best interest in mind. They are fiduciary and it looks to save you money and not lose more of it. And that's very important. You have to have people that are a fiduciary, I feel, in today's world to do things in your best interests and make sure it's best for you. The next step is pay down your credit cards. Don't carry a big balance on your credit cards with high APRs and APRs means high interest rates, and that's not a good place to be. And there's no one's ever become rich off of airline miles and hotel points. Now it it. I see you smiling there, Matt. Have you used those?

Producer:
Oh, me, never.

Jeff Holmes:
Yeah.

Producer:
Worked off of them. But you know what? They have their place, I would imagine, you know.

Jeff Holmes:
Yes, they sure do take.

Producer:
Advantage of if you do it right.

Jeff Holmes:
Yes, you do it right. And the goal here is to make sure you pay off the balance each month. And then those you get to use those points. Maybe it's cash back, whatever it is. And very, very nice to have a few dollars back, even though it's not much. Also, a credit card should not be used for an emergency fund. Remember, an emergency fund is should be something that at least a minimum of 3 to 6 months of expenses set aside for any unforeseen emergencies and things you can say air conditioner during the summer, you know, stuff like that going out. So we'll continue on with this segment here in our next last segment, I should say here. So have a few minutes break here and we'll be back.

Producer:
Rest Assured Retirement is available wherever you listen to podcasts and online at RestAssuredRetirement.com. Helping bring you one step closer to financial freedom. You're listening to Rest assured Retirement.

Jeff Holmes:
Welcome back to the Rest Assured Retirement show. I'm Jeff Holmes, a certified retirement counselor and certified financial fiduciary. We were just going through the segment on New Year's resolutions that we can help you keep. And we were getting close to the end there. We just got through talking about paying down your credit cards. The next is to review your credit report. So what you want to do is you really want to make sure that you check it regularly and take steps to repair any negative aspects of that. There really is no excuse. It's pretty easy nowadays. You have a lot of places you can check on that for free and there could be errors in that and that's not uncommon. So keep an eye on that. Really important to do. And then the last point of this is, as you move through your career, your life insurance and disability insurance needs will continue to change. So give some thought of how much protection you need and consider investing in an index Universal life. I call that an IUL. And that's good if you're still in your forties and fifties. Those convertibles work really well if they're designed properly. And these type of policies are one the way only ways that you can generate truly tax free retirement income. Obviously, Roth IRAs are another way to do that. They both have their pluses and minuses. You need to know that. So if you have questions on that, please call in. We'll be glad to go through that. So the bottom line here of of having gone through the New Year's resolutions that we can help you keep is get in touch with us so we can help you build and navigate your financial plan.

Jeff Holmes:
When it comes to something as important as your money, you want to provide you or you and your spouse a one on one opportunity to ask questions about your specific situations. Give your money the attention it deserves and needs in order to grow for your future. Now, obviously, you notice I said financial plan earlier, and if you're in your retirement, it may be your retirement plan. We went through the differences today, so if you didn't hear that, please go back and listen to our recorded shows at Rest Assured Retirement. So what what do we do in our complimentary consultations? We basically those are set up for for retirement consultations. We provide these at no cost to our listeners the same way I provide these at no cost to the people that go through the classes I've taught at companies and different universities and colleges. And there's absolutely no obligation. The reason we can do it that way, because you've taken the time to be serious about your financial education, and we know that and we're more than glad to help out people as much as we can in that situation. And remember, you only work with us if you feel like we can make things better for you. And if we don't, we don't work together. And I'll be the first the first to tell you, if we cannot make your situation better, you may be in the best place you can be in.

Jeff Holmes:
And we also will help you discover exactly how much you are paying in fees and help you cut unnecessary costs in your retirement accounts, which your IRAs and your four one case. We can also help out with Social Security planning and Medicare planning. Again, I'm going to repeat it again December 7th. That's that annual enrollment period. Yep. Be sure you do get that squared away. Call into our office at 480 454 9191 and request a medicare 101 with Jocelyn and she can review your situation, see if you're in the best place you need to be there. Also going on to our next segment here and this is something I mentioned early in the show is what retirees fear the most. Okay, I'm waiting for your answer. So have you answered it? Okay, good. Well, what is it? It is running out of money. That is it. And why could people fear running out of money? We've got a few reasons for that and how this could happen to hardworking Americans where they're always worried about running out of money. Well, if you want to look at I think I've got seven different reasons potentially can cause that. The first one is potential Social Security cutbacks. And there are people that don't even plan for Social Security because they're worried about it. And there's a quick little note here. Did you know in 1940 that there were 40 workers per retiree? Today, there are only. Guess what? How many? Three per retiree. Nothing wrong with this at all.

Producer:
Of course not. You know, I'm I'm not the best at math, but that math doesn't look too great to me.

Jeff Holmes:
Yeah. But wait, there's more. Yeah. This ratio is expected to become 2 to 1 by the year 2050. Yeah. Not so good. Also, there's tax increases on the horizon, most likely. We've had historically low tax rates, much lower than we used to be. And if you always, always wondered what taxes used to be historically, just look it up. Online tax history, historical tax chart. And you'll find that there were periods where the top. Tax rate was above 90%. Very high back in the day. And people were shocked to hear that that talk at that top bracket was over 90%. So you have to think about that a little bit when with those there's increasing national debt, it has not been going down. I've noticed anybody knows anything different. Please call in. And and government spending has gone up. Many experts believe taxes will have to go up in order to meet the nation's budget requirements. Also, another thing is inflation. Cost of living adjustments reflect 14.6% inflation over the last two years. Some experts believe, and I like this one, believe true inflation is much higher. Okay. Well, cost of living adjustments, that's they're based on the CPI inflation, which is consumer price index inflation. And one of the things that does not include is energy housing. Or food. So I would say that we had a little bit more inflation than that. Portfolio balances are going down to quickly also. We talked about that earlier sequence of returns. Risk can be devastating to people in the retirement red zone. Preservation of assets is a key in order to fund a long retirement. And if you really don't take care of this situation now, I guess when you find out about it.

Producer:
When it's too late.

Jeff Holmes:
Thank you, Matt. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. You have to laugh at that to keep from crying, believe me. Because that's when most people do find that out. And it is in their eighties and nineties in most cases. So if you haven't had a retirement plan where you have, you've seen software where it shows you potential situations of how that can affect your retirement. That sequence of insurance risk, what's happened in 2022 and 2008. And that brings us to the next point here why retirees fear running out of money the most. And that's market crashes. And I don't know if you realize that from 2000 to 2002, there were three straight years of declines in the market. Not good. If you're trying to start your retirement, then most people had to go back to work. And, you know, it was a tough time. And also starting from 2000 through 2010, which also included 2008, which was a -37 in 2008, If you look at the history of that, you can go online and do an S&P calculator. And what you'll find is, is either depending on whether the investments, the dividends were reinvested or were used for income, you were in the negative or barely in the positive, maybe half percent.

Jeff Holmes:
So it just basically was a zero for ten years. They call that the lost decade, by the way. And then obviously we had 2018 of -4.4. And then this year, a year to date is 16.9%. And it's working on it again. I noticed today at the time of this recording, the next is health care expenses, obviously between prescriptions and common procedures and potential long term care expenses. A couple retiring in 2022 may need as high as 315,000 on their health care in retirement. That's a pretty good chunk of change. So are you planning for that? That's something that you really need to look at because that can happen. They say 50 to 70% of the people will experience that situation. Hopefully you don't and having to care for a loved one. And we're kind of in the sandwich generation. All the people that are getting ready to retire and are retired, just retired. And that's where they're maybe taking care of a dependent parent or a child are both. And that's why I call it the sandwich generation. And to deal with those additional monthly expenses, to take care of those family members. And that's been there and done that situation ourselves and know exactly how that is.

Producer:
Here's the cost cutter of the week.

Jeff Holmes:
The cost-cutters pay off your mortgage completely. Now, we just hinted on this a little bit earlier on about maybe that's the way to go, because I find that people tend to be really happy when they have that mortgage paid off. But you need to think about that a little bit because if you are in a situation where you have one of those mortgages that's down and it's very low, it's in the two or 3% range, you may want to look at just keeping money in an investment that's earning something higher than that and using that extra interest that you're earning and that will tend to pale to pay off a mortgage quicker. And if you haven't done any mortgage planning that gets into that. Please give us a call. I do have software that does that and will help you go through and make those decisions. Very important because you also see how it affects your retirement later on in your retirement in your eighties and nineties. So very important to go through that to make sure you are making the right decision if you plan on paying that off. Now we're going to our next segment on the new tax brackets for 2023. They basically are changing. This is from Forbes.

Jeff Holmes:
The annual income tax rates are staying the same for the next two tax seasons. That means in 2025, it goes reverse back to what they were before these went in place. And but what happens within the tax brackets, the income buckets that they cause, have been charged progressively higher rates are undergoing major inflation adjustments because of the higher, highest price increasing increases in decades. And what that means is basically they're increasing those higher limits in those to basically help you with inflation. So maybe you don't pay as much in taxes because of the inflation. And getting hit of taxes is not a good situation. So it is good that they move those up. And also it's also good to know to you what your effective tax rate is. Also, because we talked about brackets there and what that is, is your average tax rate. If you don't know what that is, please call in 480 454 9191 or call your CPA and they can tell you what your average tax rate is. So again, we do know that for 2023 that there's going to be an 8.7% cost of living adjustment for Social Security, and that is up from last year's 5.9%. So, yeah, you'll see your Social Security go up.

Producer:
It's this week in history.

Jeff Holmes:
On this day in 1948, English singer songwriter and television personality Ozzy Osbourne was born and everybody seems to have heard of him. Used to be lead vocalist for the heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He's done quite well, had like seven multiplatinum certifications on his albums, done real well. Also on this date in 1947, a Street Cart, Streetcar Named Desire opened on Broadway, and obviously Marlon Brando played in that along with Jessica Tandy and a movie. And the final thing, as we finish up in business on December 4th in 1954, the first ever Burger King opened in Miami, Florida. And I know since this is just around lunchtime on Sunday, you may want to head on, head on in for that. So that's all we have. We're out of time for this week and glad you could join again. It's Jeff Holmes. RestAssuredRetirement.com Signing off for this week.

Producer:
Thanks for listening to Rest Assured Retirement. You deserve to work with an experienced and licensed expert who will strategically work to protect and grow your hard-earned assets to schedule your free no-obligation consultation with Jeff. Visit RestAssuredRetirement.com. Or pick up the phone and call 480 454 9191. That's 480 454 9191.

Producer:
Assured Financial is an independent financial services firm helping individuals create retirement strategies using a variety of investment and insurance products to custom-suit their needs and objectives. This material has been prepared for information on educational purposes only and is not intended to provide and should not be relied upon for accounting, legal tax or investment advice. Advisory services are offered through Foundations Investment advisors, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Certified Financial Fiduciary. CFF is issued by the National Association of Certified Financial Fiduciaries. CFF has reserved for financial professionals who have successfully completed a certification and training process established by the NACFF and the AFEA.

Producer:
Investment Advisory Services are offered through Foundations Investment Advisors, LLC, Foundations an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. The content provided is intended for informational and educational purposes only. The views, statements and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual speakers and not necessarily those of foundations and its affiliates. The information contained herein does not constitute an offer to sell any securities or represent an express or implied opinion or endorsement of any specific investment opportunity offering or issuer. Any discussion of performance or returns is not indicative of future results. Each individual investor situation is different and any ideas provided may not be appropriate for your particular circumstances. Foundations only transacts business in states where it's properly registered or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Registration as an investment advisor is not an endorsement of the firm by securities regulators and does not mean the advisor has achieved a specific level of skill or ability. No legal or tax advice is provided. Always consult with a tax professional. All rights reserved.

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