transcript

Speech-to-text transcription can look a little quirky. Please excuse any grammar or spelling errors.

Episode #579 - Retirement Plan Live Debrief with Tanya Nichols

Roger: Welcome to the show dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement, but to have the confidence because you're doing the work to really lean in and rock it.

When I think of retirement planning, stage one is answering the central questions. Can I retire? Am I okay? Will I run out of money? What will my retirement look like? Those central questions have to be answered first before you can get on to the business of thinking in a more expansive way about what could be possible, and they're both important. We don't just want to survive, we want to get those central questions answered, but then we want to think about how we can flourish beyond that. It doesn't get much more complicated than that.

Next week we'll tackle the question of whether you should have private equity in retirement or not. Today on the show, we are going to have Tanya Nichols from Align Financial on to do a debrief on Laura and Nick's case studies that we did in January. Tanya, listen to them all and watch the replays. We're going to talk about how they were similar, how they were different, and some lessons related to them.

Then in addition, we're going to answer some of your questions now. Next week I'm going to bring my soapbox back out and try to hit head on the question of, should I have private equity in my retirement portfolio? There's been a bestselling book arguing that you should have private equity investments in your portfolio. I had a question from a listener where they're being recommended to have private equity. So, I want to hit this one head on and what, if any, is the role of this in retirement, but for now, let's go talk with Tanya and debrief on our Retirement Plan Live case studies.

DEBRIEF WITH TANYA NICHOLS

Debriefs are a great idea to do after you've gone through something, whether it's a meeting or a vacation. It's good to do a debrief just to sort of reflect back upon what's happened because it's easy just to move on to the next thing and not really integrate any lessons or aha moments that you had. So, Laura and Nick from last month's Retirement Plan Live, I encourage you to do that, do some journaling, re listen to them because there are things that can come out of that if you pay attention.

Part of paying attention is for me to do a debrief on that. To help me with that debrief and do it with me is, I don't have a nickname for you yet, but I give nicknames. Tenacious Tanya. I don't know. We're going to work on it. How are you?

Tanya: Good morning, Roger. I'm good.

Roger: You listened to all of the case studies and the results show.

Tanya: I did.

Roger: What were your general impressions?

Tanya: I thought it was really interesting to listen to two case studies side by side like that. One of the things that stood out to me was the differences in the way that they enjoy their time, and how that gets reflected in spending. I really like doing the side by side.

Roger: I'm thinking I might do that again in the future because it helps to compare and contrast, which gives more clarity.

Let's talk about Laura first. Laura lives towards the west coast. What were some observations on Laura in terms of her lifestyle and her plan?

Tanya: Well, I second your observations in the talk that her spending overall was lower than I would have expected for someone who lives in that area. But what it also stood out to me was, you know, she was pretty confident in her numbers and I think that increases confidence overall in retirement. So, you know, anytime we're doing these things, you're listening to Nick and Laura talk about their spending. That's the number one lever. To hear Laura kind of push back and say, hey, yeah, no, these are my numbers, I know I can do this. I go to the beach for fun, you know, not the casino. So, I thought that was one of the things that stood out to me. Yes, her spending was lower, but she was really confident in it, which made her plan really work.

Roger: I felt like I poked around a lot because I was like, really? Come on, really? The last time we had somebody that really had a lower than average, whatever that means, spending number got a lot of feedback of not believing it and saying that's really not possible, which I think is interesting. It's a good question, because even looking at my spending, I'm like, really? But it's also an interesting reflection on where my money goes or where our money goes, because I asked her. She cycles and she has a really nice bicycle. I think she has really nice quality equipment so it's not like she's frugal in a negative sense. It's just when she has her things, they're tools to go out into the world, not tools themselves. I love to upgrade bikes. That's probably an unhealthy way of thinking about it, right?

What risks come with having a lifestyle that your plan is based off of that is so low?

Tanya: Well, like you hit on, the risk that you don't do the thing you don't do as much as you could and you look back someday and you think, wow, well, you have this huge wealth surplus at the end, because I think her numbers were like 99% if I remember correctly.

Roger: They were pretty.

Tanya: When I see those types of high numbers, it usually means the probability of a pretty significant surplus is high, especially if legacy isn't a critical factor, I mean, that's what stands out to me is, you know, how else do you want to use your funds earlier in order to not let somebody else decide how to spend your money?

Roger: The dance between that or the tension between that and sort of the other extreme I think of is when your numbers are so low, there aren't as many buffers as possible of spending that can be redirected. If I go out to eat a lot, and that's in my base, great life, if I have rocky times, I need somebody to come do the yard because I can't or whatever, I don't have discretionary spending within that budget to redirect if life happens because it's so lean to begin with, but there's a natural tension between what you talked about, hey, I'm probably going to have a lot money if everything goes well, and being mindful of your expenses because if we spend more today, you'll have less and you might need it later. That's always the tension that we're trying to resolve. Once people realize they can achieve something, they pause and evaluate

Tanya: Tell me what you thought about her retirement date, the importance of the date that she retired kind of changed once she knew it was possible. Do you find that, do you find that a lot with clients? Because I know I do.

Roger: Yeah. You mean when she realized it could be her birthday? Why is it that we focus on a date, but then when we realize it is possible it’s like, whoa, wait a second here. Wait, wait, wait, wait a second. Maybe. Let me rethink this. Why do you think that is?

Tanya: Maybe. Well, it's now on your terms. So now you're dictating, the time? I don't know, I don't know. Just because you don't have to or now because you're like, oh my gosh, wow, now I can, now what do I do? So maybe it's not real until you get that, you know, for some folks anyways, until you get Those numbers solidified.

Roger: Well, you end up pursuing something, and then as soon as you realize, oh, I can do that, that's the first time you think it is possible. Do I really want it?

Tanya: Oh, yeah. Like, you caught the. Like, you hit it. You hit the goal, and then all of a sudden, you're like, wait a second. Is that the right goal?

Roger: Do I really want this?

Tanya: Yes. Yep. That's it.

Roger: If we're achievement oriented, it's the pursuit that just feeds on itself. I think that can happen with us. So, I definitely experience in my practice, when people realize they can achieve something, they do pause and really evaluate. Then they start to, oh, what does that mean? I'm going to have to change my day. I'm not going to have income. Then they start to grapple with the reality of it, I guess. How have you seen people navigate that in your practice?

Tanya: I just really always encourage them, that it's in their court to keep imagining and thinking about what a day in the life of their future self looks like. And I think sometimes it just takes longer to move on from the identity of work, which you've talked about a lot on the show. So, once you realize the financials are there, I think it's really continuing to encourage them that the confidence is there on the financials. So, then it's a matter of, okay, well, now start designing your life. How do you decide how hard it is to push clients when they're afraid?

Roger: But here's a planner question. When you have someone and you're telling them to imagine their future self not working, and that freaks them out because of the state of the country and the world right now, blah, blah, blah. That freaks them out.

If you discern that, really, it's the fear of having to go on that journey, not that they don't want to retire. You have the judgment. Okay, yeah, they really want to retire. You've known them long enough. But when they hesitate, it's the fear of the unknown and the journey. How do you decide how hard to push them? Because you know that they really do. They're just a little afraid, Right. Same thing with kids. How do you do that?

Tanya: Well, it depends on the day, I suppose. I think my style with clients is such that I want to empower them, and I take the position that I don't know what their best life looks like, but they do, and they'll figure it out. I don't know if I “push”. I might be contradicting myself here. I definitely push my kids. But when it comes to clients, I don't pick their goal. I really want to encourage them. I mean there's the die with zero concept there. There's some that really are comfortable with the idea that they might run out someday. Then there are others who would think that's an utter failure of their plan, and so I just take the position that it's not my job to pick. I don't know if I push super hard, but I do provide a lot of data, to help them increase confidence so that when they go to make that choice, they really feel good about it.

Roger: I'm thinking about this as you're talking. I definitely don't think it's my role to make decisions for clients when it comes to especially life stuff. But I do think it is my job to know them well enough to know when to poke and challenge just because they're afraid of the unknown or they're getting in the way of themselves. This is where having some coaching chops is really helpful in doing some reps there and some training because a good coach never tells you what to do. But they do reflect a lot of things back at you that are very uncomfortable. So, there's a dance there, there's a dance there.

You, and I had an interaction recently where someone said just do it. It was sort of off putting because who are you to tell us what to do or not, right? Even though they were in a coaching role. So, it's interesting.

Anyway, any other observations with Laura before we move on to Nick and then we'll compare them a little bit?

Tanya: No, let's chat about Nick.

Roger: Okay. Nick is a whole other animal, right? He lives in a major metropolitan area. He has a big heart for service. He is less about outdoors and more about interacting in urban environments. He likes to go to casinos, he likes people, museums and things that cost money or going out. His social network very different than Laura. What was your vibe with Nick?

Tanya: Well, I liked the fact that both plans were so different. Like hers didn't need a lot of modification. But then when you worked on his, you showed just how a few different levers, like not inflating the mortgage, just changing that one little thing and a couple others, how you can get to similar outcomes by just rethinking some of those inputs. I really liked your creativity with how to make that possible rather than just plugging it all in, hitting the button and saying, oops, sorry, can't do it. which I think is what happens when people use tools like that. Sometimes they just click a button and say, oh, it's 40% done deal. But you can really get creative with those inputs and you're able to show Nick a way to make this possible.

Roger: I always preach about don't try to get too precise. Right. I'm always pushing against the geeks who get too precise. But you do need to have some level of precision and the mortgage is a really good example. It doesn't inflate over time. If you got 30 years on a $2,000 a month payment, that becomes a huge number if it's inflating over and over again. Like you said, Tanya, with those tools it makes a material difference in the decisions that you make because not understanding the nuance, literally you could work three more years because you didn't think about something like that.

Tanya: Exactly, or hard coding the legacy. We do the same thing here where we're typically not hard coding the legacy for the reasons that you illustrated in Nick's plan that do you want to make a three year change in how long you work for some future that is quite variable. You don't know how that's going to turn out. So not hard coding the legacy is another one of those levers that you pulled that I think is important.

Roger: Yeah, another lever there is if you do want to leave a certain amount of money and it's not going to be the house or like you pointed out earlier with Laura, if you have a plan that's feasible and you make it resilient, it likely will overshoot and have more money than you need because we're not going to optimize it to the nth degree because then it's too fragile. You likely will have an inheritance even if you don't plan for it. But if it's one of those things that's of certainty for you, it's worth exploring. Do I buy life insurance to solve that? Then that life insurance is leverage. You probably get that amount of money at the end for a lot less money in the premiums that you pay.

By the way, we're talking about Nick and Laura's journey. If you haven't watched the replays of the results shows, you can find those rogerwhitney.com under Free Resources. We have a list for all the past Retirement Plan Live case studies. So, if you want to if you didn't get a chance to catch it or you want to revisit that, you can go back and watch them there.

Anything else related to Nick?

Tanya: Obviously, he was dealing with a huge work crisis that was a perfect example of how you can focus all you want on precision and all the little steps that you need to do and at the end of the day, you can get a total curveball. Making sure your plan is resilient is such a key part of this. I think that if we can open our minds to the idea that these changes are going to come whether we like them or not and just try to learn to be more adaptable to them, that's going to keep happening once you retire, too.

I also noticed both of them were taking care of their parents.

Roger: Yeah, they were. I didn't even clue in on that in some way.

Tanya: I think that's another thing to notice about the single no kids situation. Not that married couples aren't caring for their family members, they certainly are, but I do think that I've noticed that with my clients who are single, that they end up being a primary caregiver for aging parents, oftentimes for a variety of reasons.

Getting our minds straight about approaching those things is important when planning for retirement

Roger: Before we go there, let's go back to how important it is to have a resilient plan.

I had a little rant last week on the show that you haven't heard yet, and it's easy to forget what's most important and put the least important things first. As you were talking about, the one metaphor image that came to mind is me driving. I'll use Colorado because that's one of my favorite driving. Me driving to Colorado, stopping to get my horrible Big Mac because that's like my guilty pleasure when I'm on a road trip and I'm driving on the road, eating my Big Mac because I don't want to waste time. There are times when you're driving, eating a Big Mac and maybe grabbing your Coke, you're probably not going to have your hands on the wheel, right? You're going to have your knee on the wheel or whatever. I'm not proud. It's just a fact. It's easy to make those things the priority because you're on cruise control at 75. Everything's safe, it doesn't take long. This is sort of the point with Nick, where new administration, new priorities and all of a sudden, what you thought was a safe, very secure job with the federal government suddenly becomes very unsafe very quickly. That's like I'm driving, grabbing my coke and I see a deer or see something happen, I'm like, oh crap, I need to make the main thing the main thing. It's very easy to forget that. Nick is navigating that right now and it sounds like he's in a relatively good spot to navigate that, thankfully. But you're right about the parents. You're right about the parents, less people to help.

Tanya: Yes. I mean, you just do not know what kind of surprises you are going to have in retirement, whether that is helping parents or a job change. It is like looking around and there is going to be discomfort. Whether that is the job change before you expected it to be, or retirement before you expected, or the fires in Los Angeles or whatever the latest crisis is. The more we get used to discomfort, the better we can manage major transitions like retirement. You talk about this all the time.

Who says that? Stutz?

Roger: Oh, Phil Stutts, right?

Tanya: Yes, yes, Phil Stutz. What is it? Pain, uncertainty, and work?

Roger: You will never be exonerated from pain, uncertainty, or the need to do work.

Tanya: Yes. and that is how you approach these types of things is that even if it says 99% and even if there is a wealth surplus, there are a million things that are going to change along the way. So, getting our minds straight about approaching those things, that is actually probably one of the most important levers to pull outside of spending when it comes to retirement.

Roger: To use Laura as an example because you mentioned that she was at 99% of in how she is taking care of her mom. There is a part of us that needs to be present with them. Right. That we need to be there with them because we are family, we have a connection. But there is also the opportunity of using some of that excess confidence or funding to make it easier, so you can still ride your bike in her case, right?

Tanya: Yes.

Roger: Where you are not just delegating this to paid providers. I mean that would be the extreme. But there is a balance between, I am holding this flag, it's my mom, I'm sacrificing my life. There is a balance between that and just spending money so you never have to go be with her. That I think we can find. If you have the opportunity.

Tanya: Right. Like to be creative about the things you could outsource. If you feel like you really cannot outsource the being together thing, there are other things in your own home that you can outsource to make to reduce your mental load at home. For example.

Roger: Yeah.

Tanya: If you feel like you really need to be at mom's or something like that.

Roger: Now let’s compare and contrast. One thing that really stood out to me was when I looked at their net worth and they were actually relatively similar. Let me rephrase. Nick had a lot more spending, but he also had a lot of social capital. Guaranteed payments, in his case mostly inflation adjusted for the rest of his life. That makes life pretty easy.

Tanya: It makes your spending decisions feel easier for sure.

Roger: Yes. I have seen this many times with individuals who know they are going to have a large inheritance. They make different decisions. They can, I would agree they could. Not all of them, I have some that are very cognizant of. I can't include that. There is a lot of processing about. They can't count on it and they want to stand at their own two feet. But then there is another contingent where they just make different spending decisions because they know they're going to get a lot of money and so they're more willing to take risks with their own. I'm not saying Nick is that way, but it definitely makes it easier.

Tanya: Well, and like Laura's case, when she had mentioned everything that's going on in the economy right now, so she felt like her decisions were more impacted by external forces because she's ultimately responsible for the majority of her income.

Roger: Yeah, from her capital other than Social Security.

Tanya: Exactly. Yeah.

Roger: How do you incorporate with what's going on in the world into planning and life choices?

Tanya: Well, we have a similar approach in the fact that I don't want their dates to be dependent on these things that are outside of our control. So, we really just home in on spending and these temporary shocks to our psyche and our finances depending on whether we work for the government or what the market's doing. But you got a long window. It's 30 years. I had a couple of people retire just before COVID and I always joke that as people are leading up to retirement, I just let them know that they're going to be the cause of the next market crash or pandemic or government shutdown or whatever crisis of the day is. I'm teasing, but sometimes that's just how it goes. You want to have a plan that is resilient. That means even if there's a pandemic or a complete government shutdown or some major event, your plan still works or that you have, you're prepared for the adjustments that it might take for a year or two in order to make your plan feasible.

Roger: Ultimately, you never know what's going to happen next. It's always different this time. The world is always in a state, and you do have to be aware, but you can't let that dictate your life.

Tanya: No.

Roger: Any other compares or contrasts with Laura and Nick?

Tanya: No, I look forward to doing another side by side. That was a fun way to hear their stories.

LISTENER QUESTIONS

Roger: Now it's time to get to your questions. We want to help you take a little baby step on your way to rocking retirement.

JOHN HAS A QUESTION ABOUT UTILIZING EXTRA INCOME

Our first question comes from John, who is looking to save more money.

“Hey, Roger,

I have recently started listening to your podcast. I'm up to number 28.”

John, this always amazes me that we go all the way back. That must be quite a common thing. That's 11 years of podcast. I don't even know who that Roger is anymore. So, let me know whether or not those shows are any good.

“I'm 73. I took advantage of an early retirement offer after 36 years. They offered an exceptionally good 401k, which I took advantage of. I retired in June 2014, a month below, before my 63rd birthday. Currently, my income comes from three sources. My required minimum distribution for my IRA annuity and Social Security, which I started at 68. My husband is 18 years younger than I am. He's still working, and he has a 401k through his employer. Our combined annual income is about $140,000 a year. About two thirds of that is my income. We are doing pretty well. Our plan is for my husband to retire in the next two years, so we can enjoy time with each other, traveling. We don't have any Children. We do have some extra income each month and started a spousal Roth IRA for my husband.

My question is, is there a better way for this extra income to be used rather than in a spousal Roth IRA? If so, what?

Thanks for the help.”

That's a great question. But the word better, John, can be a little problematic because that's going to mean different things for different people. What do we mean by better? Because that's a qualitative judgment of, I don't know, it depends on what's most important to you in this season of life.

So currently you have extra income, you're saving it in a spousal Roth IRA, and the question is, is there a better place to save that? The way to find the answer is, well, what is the purpose of this money? What is the purpose of the money? What are you trying to solve for?

If we assume that you've already paid off any debt, you're already living like you want to live, and there's not any better use for this money in terms of maybe living a little bit more now, or there isn't a need, whether it's charitable or otherwise, that you could apply this to, and this money is truly for investment or savings, then the next question would be, what is the best way to save this? Is it best to save it? That's going to depend on your liquidity. If you're working towards him retiring in a couple of years, do you have enough liquidity when his income goes away to fund the life for both of you between your income and assets? That comes from having a plan of record in place.

Think of it this way. Right now, your income and his income are paying for life. When his income goes away in a couple of years, what is the gap that's going to need to be filled by his income going away, if any? We want to know that first.

Where are you going to fill that gap from? Do you already have cash savings to fund the replacement of that gap that's going to be gone when his income is going to be gone? If you do, if you already have some clarity over the next five years of exactly how you're going to replace the gap once he stops working, then this money could be for investment or for consumption or for gifting or otherwise. But you want to go in the right order, John, and think about when his income goes away in a couple of years, we will have the liquidity to replace enough of his income to cover what we want our life to look like. So, if this really is long term money, then we can talk about how best to invest it. Then when you're thinking about investing in it, the next question is, what's the best tax vehicle to do that in? I think a Roth IRA is a good tax vehicle if you're able to make those contributions to start to funnel money into. I would go through that order, but it doesn't sound like you're on a bad path right now assuming you have clarity on how you are going to close that gap when it comes.

EDWARD HAS A QUESTION ABOUT DIVERSIFICATION VERSUS SAFETY

Our next question is from Edward about diversification versus safety.

Edward says,

“I have about $760,000 in an actively managed bond fund in my 401k and I get about $3200 a month in dividends. Would it be wise to move the rest of my retirement money, which is substantial, 4.6 million, into this bond fund, which would provide me $19,580 of monthly income, sufficient for my monthly expenses, or should I keep my money diversified?

Currently I'm in 60% equity, 40% bonds. I am sixty-two, working half time beginning March 2025 and married.”

All right, basic math here, Edward. If you put all of your money into this bond fund, you'll get about $20,000 a month or $240,000 a year in today's dollars and it sounds like that's more than enough to meet your needs. You won the game financially. It sounds like you did pretty well.

Do you just put it all into a bond fund, currently have 60% equities, 40% bonds? It's going to come back to what it is you want and the way I would recommend you approach this, Edward, is to get a feasible plan of record of exactly what you anticipate or desire. Your base great life, your discretionary wants and wishes, your aspirational things, when those types of spending will start, and when they'll stop. I'll need a car every four years for this amount. I want to travel on a big trip every other year for these many sequences. I want to buy a boat in 10 years. I want to be able to do annual gifting for 10 years. Individual goals with individual amounts, when they start, when they stop, and what the sequence of the spending of those goals are. You want to map those out.

How old did you say you are? Sixty-two. Let's assume a 30 year timeframe. So, you have a base great life that will, you'll have to meet for you and your wife to have a base life that you really enjoy and that will continue on between now and ninety-two. Then you have discretionary spending that you want to do in certain sequences. Maybe some go-go spending early, some travel early, some gifting. Think through what those might be, and in what order and sequence, et cetera.

Then look at your income sources because you have Social Security, I'm going to assume that will offset some of that and that's inflation adjusted. Then maybe you have a pension or part time work right now. How long are you going to do that? Then you have the resources that you mentioned. Do a feasibility analysis using software to determine whether you're overfunded, constrained, or underfunded. Sounds like you're overfunded for the goals, at least the way that you frame the question. Do this first before you get to the question you have.

Now that you've gotten to this question, you can start to explore. If we're just focused on risk, hey, I won the game. Let me just put it in bonds, not worry about it. We're not thinking about other things you could do with life. If we're just focusing from the lens of risk. Now you can see how this is feasible over 30 years. If I sacrifice potential equity returns and just have the returns of bonds, is this feasible? Software can easily show you the feasibility with several types of portfolios from grandma. I call it a grandma portfolio. Basically, having bonds to 100% equities. Now you can look through the lens of volatility, of, hey, if I go all bonds, does it impair the long term feasibility of the life that I said I wanted to live? You can look through that lens and if it says that it's okay, Edward, does that mean that you do it? Not necessarily. I can put all this in a bond fund and get $20,000, a month in income doesn't give you the entire picture of what that income will be over time. Meaning that just because the bond fund pays out $20,000 a month for the amount of money that you're talking about per month, it doesn't mean that it will always do that. If interest rates go up, then the yield or the income could go up. But if interest rates go down, the income could go down as well. So that income is not guaranteed because it's a bond fund, it has a portfolio underneath that that's constantly generating income of some sort. The value of that portfolio is going to go up based on interest rates, defaults, and other factors. So that's not guaranteed income. It's not like buying an annuity where you know the exact dollar amount that you're going to get. It's not going to look at it from that lens. So, you got to be careful there.

The second area you want to be mindful of, Edward, is that over 30 years there's this thing called inflation. I'm being sarcastic, you know that. If we just assume for a second that you need $20,000 a month to live well, inflation will increase the amount that you actually need. Meaning that if it's $20,000 a month today, over 30 years, that $20,000 a month will lose value. It won't buy as much in goods over a 30 year span. Just assuming 3%, 20,000 will only buy $11,070 in 20 years. So, the value of that 20,000 that you're getting every month will go down. Just as a matter of inflation. If inflation is higher, it will degrade the value of the dollar at higher levels. If it's lower, it'll moderate it. Bond funds are not good inflation hedges. They're great with markets in not losing money to volatility. They're a lot less volatile than equities, but they do a horrible job in managing inflation risk. So very rarely do we say go into grandmother's portfolio because there's inflation risk and we don't know what inflation is going to be in the future.

In addition to that, there are unknown spending shocks that could come in the future that could be the negative ones. We think about what happens if long term care event, early onset Alzheimer's, really dramatic negative things. You don't know what your 65, 70 year old self is going to want and might have a broader vision for what you want to do or to give. We want to have money working and growing to battle inflation as well as build buffers for unknown expenses that might come up in the future, good or bad. So that's where this starts to break down a little bit.

Now there are a bunch of different ways to approach this, Edward, to have the security of income that you're talking about in terms of buying a bond fund and having consistent income That is potentially taking part of your assets, defining what is the base amount I need per month just to support our life, as a worst case scenario, figure out how much it would cost to buy a pension to cover that amount, which would be in the form of annuity, in this case a very plain annuity. That is trading your money for a pension or a guaranteed income for you and your wife's life. Then the rest of the money can be invested any way you want, but you've created this constant level of income and still can have liquidity to do other things. It's not as simple as just go buy a bond fund because there are a lot of risks to bond funds depending on the kinds of seasons and the main ones are going to be inflation risk over time.

Just a couple questions today because we spent time with Tanya. For now, let's go set a smart sprint.

TODAY’S SMART SPRINT SEGMENT

On your marks, get set, and we're off to set a little baby step we can take in the next seven days to not just rock retirement, but rock life.

All right, in the next seven days I encourage you to take this little baby step. Earlier this year, I encouraged you to start a tax file. Remember that?

Well, you have been getting emails and envelopes with tax documents over the last couple of months. Be a good sport if you work with a CPA®, start to organize those things and as best as you can get them to your CPA® or tax preparer as early as possible. They work under tremendous deadlines and they're going to serve you best. If they have time and it's not caught up in the rush, yes, they can file an extension. I say this and I encourage you to do this as someone who can be a little bad about following my own advice partly because I get things coming in so late.

That's your action item. As you're starting to get this stuff, get that stuff organized and if you got everything, get your taxes done or get that to your preparer.

BONUS

Now for the next installment of my grandfather Zigman Canceller’s flights in a B-17 Flying Fortress over Europe in World War II.

“Mission number 24, August 6th, 1944. Ship number 274 sortie 16th. Well, hit the halfway mark now and started on the home stretch. We hit Valance, France. Target hit darn good. No flak, escort, or enemy fighters. A very nice one today. Carried 12,500 pound bombs. Mission eight hours, altitude 22,000ft.”

Short and sweet. We'll continue on with mission twenty-five next week. Hope you have a wonderful week.

The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All, performance reference is historical and does not guarantee future results. All indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly. Make sure you consult your legal, tax or financial advisor before making any decisions.