Latest / The Jon Sanchez Show / The 5 Year Retirement Countdown
Transcript
- Jon G. Sanchez: Good Friday afternoon, Tio. Welcome to the John Sanchez Show on News Talk 780K, which it's a pleasure to be with you, TGIF. I hope you've had a great Friday, and it's gonna be an even better weekend for you. Looks like we're not gonna be sweltering this weekend. Thank goodness. I'm ready for a little break here. Definitely. It's been nice these last couple days. All righty. Again, thank you so much for joining me. I do appreciate it. You it's Friday, so I always give you a week on Wall Street Review. What happened this week, why it happened, kind of lay out the game plan for next week. What's this market telling us at this point? All that good stuff. But because, you know, as if you've tuned into the show each and every day, which I hope that you have, you know it has been a very quiet week overall. We've just, you know, we kind of barely budged on the weekly numbers. we did have record setting day yesterday on the SP 500, gave some of that back today, along with the other major averages. But you know, we had CPI, PPI Wednesday, Thursday. Other than that, no major earnings numbers. We're, you know, over 90% of the companies in the SP 500 have already released their earnings numbers. so we don't have that to factor in. Things have been very quiet, of course, in the Iran situation. So the market's just kind of drifting right now. You know, it seemed to get a little bit of a pop, and we have some good earnings numbers or news out of the AI space, whether it's a memory chip or a semiconductor, that that type of thing. But other than that, we're kind of in the summer doldrums. All right. Here we are, mid August, and it's the summer doldrums. So why am I telling y'all that? Because I don't have enough good market content to fill the show. So I'm like, all right, we're gonna bring on, of course, one of my passion areas. And that is retirement planning. So I've titled today's show, You're five years from retirement. What should you be doing right now? And if you are in that window, I've designed today's show exactly for you. Because you see, retirement isn't something that you prepare for six months before your last paycheck. And trust me, a lot of people do. So today I'm going to walk through the five-year retirement countdown and the financial decisions that you should be making each year before you retire. Notice I'm not saying, you know, let's wait six months before. We're going to start planning this five years out. And each and every year of those five years. There's certain benchmarks, certain milestones that we need to make sure that we're doing, that we're achieving, so that when that fifth year comes and you're ready to tell the boss, I'm out of here, you are all prepared. So you don't want to miss this. I'll get to that in just a moment. But first, let's go ahead and get the market side of things out of the way. like I said, not a lot of action today. we had really three major reports on the calendar. they didn't move the market at all. We had business inventories for the month of June, gave us a big old goose egg. We had at seven o'clock the University of Michigan. Preliminary review of consumer confidence. Reading came in at 51.2. Previous reading was about 53. The month of July's reading was 53. Still a solid number. The consumer did pull back a bit. I want to kind of start with this. What was interesting in this report? So again, this is a survey of consumers talking about or asking them a lot of things. You know, how do you feel about your job, pay raises, your spending habits? Again, Wall Street pays a lot of attention to this University of Michigan report. But what was really interesting, if you delve deep into the numbers, was that the key takeaway from the report was that only 8% of all of those surveyed expect their income growth to exceed inflation in the next year. Only 8%. So that expectation could ultimately, if this is this group, these thousands of people, translate into lower discretionary spending activity. And again, or this shouldn't come as a surprise. We all know how expensive it is, so very expensive it is to live these days, right? And very few people's wages, their raises, I should say, are keeping up with inflation. Now, maybe keeping up with the, you know, CPI and the PPI, you know, but come on, real life is much more expensive. We all know that than what that data is telling us. So if your wages aren't keeping up with inflation, you're kind of going backwards. And that's the frustrating thing for so many of you. It's a really, really tough situation. You're trying to survive, you're trying to save, you're trying to take care of the kids, you're trying to do everything. And the dollar just doesn't go that far anymore. So the only you know, solace that you have is that you have a a a company or a boss that you work for that that is giving you some very nice raises. But if you don't, like I said, it's a frustrating situation. And I I absolutely feel for you. And that's again, kind of what the report showed. Again, marketing re really budge on the the news. The the other report that we received that was somewhat report somewhat important and and also kind of the final report of the day was the retail sales number. So the retail sales down six tenths of a of a percent. They were looking for a one-tenth of a percent increase. Now, why is this important? Once again, this is a direct pulse on you, the consumer. Retail sales falling six tenths of a percent, just back to that University of Michigan report. See how they're correlated? Right? People don't have the extra money. So what are they doing? They're not outspending. Hence why we have a lower than expected retail sales number. So, you know, there's there's this is going to be really interesting these next couple months, right? Because we have midterm elections coming up. And some people have been saying on Wall Street that watch what Congress does in these next few months. That they may be pushing to announce, obviously, no time to do it, but pushing. And announcing all kinds of crazy things tax related, which we would all love. One of those one of those no capital gains on real estate. I've seen that one. I I'm not even gonna speculate for you because again, there's all kinds of things being thrown around. The bottom line is if this war continues on and Republicans become concerned about how things are gonna fare in the midterm elections. You may start to see the Republicans, i.e., led by the president, of course, making some type of an announcement or announcements in regards to things to stimulate the economy. Because the data's there. We know, of course, the data is there. As I just went over with you, plus many other reports, that the consumer is struggling right now. Higher gas prices, we're not spending as much, so on and so forth. So don't be surprised again if over the next few months before midterm elections come, that something comes out of Congress, you know, definitely on on our side, indicating, hey, we're We're we're we're really pushing to do this or do that for the consumer, obviously to get your vote. So that's just kind of one thing we're watching to counteract this weakness that we're seeing in consumer spending at this point. All right. So where do we set on a year-to-date basis? Still very solid. Small caps still leading the pack here. Let's go to that. Russell 2000 for the year, up 23.6% now. Dow Jones industrial average, 11.8% gain. SP is up 13.7. NASDAQ's higher by 15%. Once again, I wish we could close the books right now. It'd go down as a really, really solid year. Never know what course is going to happen between now and the end of the year. So much as based upon the Fed's next move, what happens in the Iranian situation, so on and so forth. But right now we're on cruise control. That's why I said we're kinda in the summer doldrums. No one really wants to no one no one has the let me put it this way. No one has the guts to short this market or to come out and say anything real negative or definitely do anything negative in their portfolio. So If they're not a firm believer in this market, if they think it's o overvalued, whatever their their bearish reasons are, they don't have the guts to do it. And it's probably the smart thing. So they're just gonna kinda sit back on their hands and say, All right, I'm gonna keep the positions I have in my portfolio, but I'm gonna watch them closely. And if they start to go down, I'm gonna get the heck out. But again, no one is no one is saying that at this point. The market's still very bullish, a lot of activity, volume's still hanging in there pretty well for even though we're in the summertime. So I'm very excited to be honest with you for fall to get here. I think I think the the the fourth quarter of this year is gonna be outstanding, again, borrowing the outlier of the of the war situation. But other than that, I think because of the midterm elections, et cetera, I think we could really be in for a stellar fourth quarter this year and obviously the rest of the third quarter. We're you a month and a half until the third quarter ends. So things looking really good. They they really are. And like I said, unfortunately, not a lot of things to talk about on that. So I might as well hit the commodity side and then we'll come back and I'll just start right into our topic today. So this These moves today did come about after higher oil prices. And let me tell you what those moves were so you know what I'm talking about here. So we finished down 108 on the Dow, 0.20% loss, 53,732 was our close. NASDAQ gave up 74 points, 0.28%, closing at 26,729. And the SP lower by 13 points, just a fraction of a percent loss, again, coming off that all-time high yesterday. And the SP's finish was at 7785. All right, now to the oil side of things. Slowly but surely today, oil just kept creeping up. There was really no specific news that I could find to to back that up a bit. but again, just just rose up $1.34 gain, closed at $82.40 a barrel. gold prices were nice today, nothing too crazy here. $16.40 increase, closing at $4,436.90 an ounce. And of course, what we paid very close attention to this week, as I said, which really were the major reports, the CPI on on Wednesday, and then of course the PPI numbers yesterday. Again, both of those numbers relatively benign, but we did have a week where interest rates did move up. The 10-year Treasury today alone was up six basis points to a close of 4.7 on the yield. But for the week it was up about four basis points. Again, nothing, you know, obviously very, very significant, but we've kind of broken the trend where we've we've really been enjoying, you know, week after week of of of bond yields coming down. Let me hit some of the other maturities here because It was a week again where it was somewhat mixed. The shorter end of the curve, which remember the wire bring that, that shorter end of the curve, the two year, the three year, even up to the five year, that's the area that is most sensitive and your best predictor of what the Fed's next move is going to be. And I've got some pretty good news. We do let's go to the two year, up three basis points today, do a yield close of four seventeen. But it was down four basis points for the week. See how I said the 10 year was up four basis? It was down. So that's what what this is telling you is the bond traders are going. You know what? We don't think the Fed's going to give us an interest rate increase in September, even though the odds are slowly starting to creep into that direction. the three year, same thing, down two basis points for the week. The five year was unchanged. And then as we start to mature out, as I said, the tenure for the week was up four basis points. The 30 year was up six basis points. So if you're trying to predict and make maybe refinance or real estate purchases or some type of borrowing per decisions, watch that shorter end of the curve. That is really your best test telltale sign right now. as to what what the street is feeling as far as the the next move of the Fed. So nice to see that for the week that those two short maturities, the two and the three year, we're down again for the weekly basis. All right, you're up to date now. When we come back, I'm gonna get into my topic, the five year retirement count down what to do before that last paycheck. Welcome back to the John Sancho Show on New Stock 780KWitch. Happy Friday to all of you. Again, a lackluster day in the market. Finished down 108 on the Dow. The NASDAQ gave up 74. The SP lower by 13. All right. I have designed today's show for those of you that are within a five-year window to retirement. Now I've done a lot of shows, a lot of shows, and some even most recently, on this magical five-year window. And remember the last time I did that, I guess it was, I don't know, maybe two, three weeks ago, if I remember right. I said, look at. There's no data to back why we pick five years. I'm going off a personal experience having helped thousands of people prepare for retirement over my career. And like I said, two human things happen. Number one, when we hit 50, this light bulb of panic goes off. And number two, when we get within five years of retirement, people tend to kind of sit up in their chairs and go, I need to get serious about this. Maybe because they're getting older and they realize how fast time goes. And so Five years to a young person feels like and sounds like an eternity to those of us that are older, not the case, right? Five years goes by in a blink of an eye. So I thought, you know what? Let me kind of share with you the things that I focus with and our clients as we get into this five-year window and what we need to be thinking about and doing in each of those five years. Because I get people all the time who say, you know what, John, I'm retiring in five years. My next question is usually fantastic. Congratulations. But what are you doing differently today? Because you are retiring in five years. And that's when it's like the deer in the headlights, I get a blank stare. Very common. Because knowing when you want to retire and actually being prepared to retire are two completely, completely different things. So what we're going to do today is we're going to kind of work backwards. You're retiring exactly five years from today. Congratulations. What should you do now? What should happen in four years, three years, two years? And what needs to happen during that final year before, as I did last Friday, and I talked about what are you gonna do when the paycheck stops? Well, that's exactly it. What are you gonna do in the next five years to be prepared when that paycheck no longer exists, doesn't come in anymore. So, like I said, we're gonna go backwards. I think it's the easiest way to do this. Year five. You absolutely at this point have to figure out what your retirement actually is going to cost you. You see, most people start with, hey, I've got, you know, whatever the number, a million, half a million, et cetera, in my 401k, my IRAs, my retirement accounts overall. Can I retire? That's the number one question they asked me. Well, that's really the wrong first question. The first question should be what is it going to cost you to live the retirement that you want? And remember, as I mentioned last Friday, I'm talking about a retirement that's, you know, very common now to be 30 or 40 years. That's a long time. If you are healthy and you're retiring at a relatively young age, you know, in your mid-sixties, you stand the possibility to live as long in retirement as you have working. Isn't that scary? So you better become the king or the queen of cash flow and budgeting and so on and so forth. If not, God forbid, you know, you find yourself in your seventies or eighties and there's no money left. So we start in that fifth year. That's when we, as I always like to tell the client, this is the year that we sharpen the pencil. We really make sure we understand how much we need, what the cost is going to be to live. And there's only one way to do it. It's that nasty B-word. Budget. So we build the budget. But not just a budget on your typical big items like mortgage and food and electricity and insurance. But I'm talking a real life budget. All those that I just mentioned. But again, real life, travel, eating out. Hey, you hopefully are going to have some great hobbies. They're probably not going to be cheap. We got to budget those in. One common thing I get a lot of times is: hey, you know what? I've driven the same car for the last 10, 15 years. This is going to be one of my rewards in retirement. I'm going to treat myself to a new car. Cool. We had a plan for though. We got a budget for it. Home repairs, you've heard me talk about this a million times. A lot of things have been building up over the years, and you finally are going to have the time in retirement. Again, Home repairs, not cheap. helping the children and the grandchildren. yeah. Remember, as I said also last Friday, kids automatically think that, and especially grandchildren, that grandma and grandpa or mom and dad are automatically rich because they were able to retire. They don't realize that you're gonna be on a fixed income. They don't re don't understand the you know 10, 20, 30 years of sacrifice you've made socking away money, writing markets up, writing markets down. So They think it's just a free ride. Hey, mom and dad got lucky. They got, you know, a few bucks put socked away. So hey, I'm not gonna hesitate to ask to borrow a few this, a few thousand here, a few thousand there. And geez, maybe well, I just did it the other day. I gave my kids some decent sum of money for my grandchildren to go close shopping. You know what? It's expensive to go close shopping. So that was my way of kind of helping out as a grandparent. Obviously, healthcare, you know how expensive that is. Property taxes, insurance, Entertainment, so on and so forth. Again, this is why I created the risk program that we have, R I S C, the retirement income savings calculator that you can request off our website at SanchezGaunt.com. Because this is what it does. Remember, it breaks down, visualize a T. It breaks your your budget down into a T. Upper left corner are all your fixed income items. Upper right corner are all your fixed expenses, like mortgage, et cetera. The software then nets them out. Are we positive or negative cash flow on the fixed side? Then we move down to the bottom quarters of the of the of the T. Bottom left is variable income. What do we have coming in on variable side? You know, portfolio, et cetera. Conversely, on the right, bottom right, what do we have as far as variable expenses? We net those two numbers out. Because we need to see, god forbid, if we get into a bad market condition, which no one you know thinks about when they're planning for retirement, but we do, what we have to think about is. Hey, if we have to pull back on our variable expenses, we have to pull back probably because our variable income, we need to, you know, watch that closely if we get into a declining market and a good majority of people's variable income is coming in off the portfolio. So it's kind of a double hit. Well, okay, it's easy to reduce down your variable expenses, right? It really is. Okay, I'm not gonna spend $500 a week on groceries, I'm gonna drop it to $350. Okay, so maybe I gotta go a year where I can't do a vacation, or so on and so forth. But the fixed side, that's a tougher one. That's a tougher one, right? We can't just all of a sudden say, hey, it's a bad economic condition and I'm retired, so I'm going to skip a month or two of my mortgage payment or my car payment. Can't do that. So you see, we want to try to have as much fixed income coming in so that we're not market and portfolio reliant. We want to know exactly what our fixed expenses are. And then we again we take a look at the variable side. We net that variable income versus expenses out. And then we net the whole thing out. Overall. Where are we? We positive or are we negative cash flow? So again, you have to do this getting ready in retirement. That last year. You can try it, you know, years, you know, between now and the in the in the fifth year or the the fourth year. You should always have a budget, first of all. But that that fifth year, again, I I I really like to hone in with our clients about six months before they're ready to retire, because that's that's now a reality, right? Very few people have changed their mind on me. six months before retirement. I I'd say, you know, probably three or four percent by the time we get that far. So you need to know, and that's a great exercise to do in that fifth year. The taxes, again, most of you are going to generate your a good portion of your retirement income from your IRA, right? You're gonna roll over your 401k, you're gonna start you're gonna invest the IRA and you're gonna start taking income. Well again, a million dollar traditional IRA isn't exactly a million dollars of spendable money. Let's say a couple wants $10,000 per month to maintain their lifestyle. It's $120 a year. That's what, you know, a lot of you, that's probably on the downside. Well, suppose Social Security provides, well, let's just say, you know, $50,000, $55,000. Now you've identified roughly $65,000 a year. That needs to come from the investments, from pensions if you're fortunate enough to have it, rental income, portfolio income, as I said, other various sources. That is before accounting for the details of the taxes and the timing. So you see what I'm saying? Now we're getting into that planning. Wouldn't you rather know in that final year planning for retirement what your cash flow is going to be versus someone that doesn't plan, they get into retirement, they go, my gosh, I'm negative cash flow every month. Or geez, I only have $500 or $1,000 left over after all the bills are paid. That's no way to live in retirement. We want to see thousands and thousands of dollars left over after all the bills are paid. That's a successful retirement. But you're never going to know again until number one, you create the budget. You start following the budget. That's really one of the most critical things to do in year number five, right there before retirement. All right, what about year number four? I'll come back on that one. Welcome back to the John Sancho Show on News Talk 780 KOH. All right, we have just just scratched the surface, just getting started on our Friday topic. Again, we already did our already did our week on Wall Street. So the topic today, again, the five-year retirement countdown, what to do before that last paycheck. First of all, let's give the those of you that may be joining us now how the market did today. Again, a quiet session as I keep repeating myself. 108-point loss on the Dow, point two zero percent, NASDAQ down 74, and the SP lost a 13. All right, so as I've said at the beginning of the show, I'm doing a five-year countdown for you, right? And we're gonna we're gonna kind of start backwards. Year one is let's call it today. And then of course, year five, that's the magical retirement year. So let me recap what we did in year one in our first year of preparation out of the five. Again, my advice is figure out what retirement actually is going to cost, right? It's where we look at not just my major expenses, but I wanna look at, you know, what am I spending on on food, electricity? insurance, travel, restaurant, hosbies, all the things. And the best way to do that is, and the really the only way, is with a budget. Okay, now, let's get into year number two. This is what I call the clean up the balance sheet year. You have to ask yourself at this point, what debts do you want following you into retirement? What debts do you want following you into retirement? Realistically, very few people retire without any debt. If their house is paid off, they go get a car payment. or if the car is paid off, they still have a house paying. I don't know, it's just reality. Very few people, very few people go into retirement debt-free. And yeah, I'm not going to bore you with the old saying there's good debt there's bad debt. Good debt is you know, real estate, right? That's good debt. Bad debt is something like, of course, any type of depreciating asset, such as a vehicle, a boat, that type of thing. Or of course, credit cards. Those are the the evil debt going into retirement. But let's get into this. Let's clean up the balance sheet. What do we want to follow us into retirement? Is it gonna be credit cards, the car loans? maybe you have a home equity line of credit still sitting out there. if you have a mortgage, that's still sitting out there, rental property debt, so on and so forth. Because remember, every monthly obligation that you have going into retirement increases the amount of income your retirement plan needs to produce. It's kind of a dollar-for-dollar trade-off, right? And as I've said over and over again, and I want to say it again because many of you are are not aware of this, it is becoming very difficult. To obtain a loan, a mortgage, or any other type of loan when you are new to retirement. You have no track record of the retirement income coming in. So let's say, for example, you decide, you know what, I'm a year into my retirement, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna get a second home, or get out of my current home and go buy another one where, you know, when you're gonna need mortgage. The lenders are really scrutinized that first year retiree. Year two. Still scrutinizing, but not quite so bad because you have a couple years of track record, right? So it's almost like when you were young and you went to apply for credit the first time and they're like, nope, turn down. You have no credit. Well, how am I supposed to get credit if no one will give me credit? Same type of thing, right? It's kind of the chicken and the egg scenario. So that's why we always encourage if you are going to buy something where you have to qualify for a loan, please do it, you know, before you retire and that paycheck stops. It just makes life so much easier. Your credit score is not going to change when you Go into retirement, you know, assuming everything else remains the same, but your income is going to change. And of course, income is needed to qualify for different types of loans. So try to get you know that debt down going into retirement. If you have any major purchases you need to do, do it while you're still working. You know, take a look at the house. The very common one I come across, they need a new roof, right? Again, they've been busy, roof hasn't been replaced in 20, 30 years, major expense. Same thing with HVAC. That's another common expense that I I hear from the clients. Yep, AC and the furnaces went out. All right. There's, let's see, I had one what Tuesday, I think it was, and they said it ran on $15,000 for a new HVAC unit. It's not cheap. And imagine every dollar in retirement, you're gonna look at it differently. Don't forget, different. You're gonna feel market declines much more than when you are working, and you're gonna feel major expenses a lot more when you're not working. Because again, you're on a fixed income. New vehicle, again. I the kind of the the typical line that I hear is again, I've had my car for 10, 15 years. I mean, I see a lot of that or hear a lot of that. it's time for a new one. Probably gonna be the last car I ever buy. I want to treat myself. I deserve this. Of course you do, absolutely. But again, if you're gonna, you know, get a loan on it, do it while you're working like that last year, or pay cash for it, whatever you want to do. major dental work is another one I come across. boy, that is not cheap whatsoever. Home remodels. You get the idea. All of your, you know, probably are gonna have some major expenses going into retirement. Just again, that's why we do a five year plan. That second year or so, get those things taken care of. If you gotta go into debt and do it, do it. But try to make a plan to have those paid off by time retirement happens. Or if you can't, at least, you know, you now have it in the budget. Okay, let's go to year number three of our five-year plan. Prepare the portfolio for the paycheck to stop. Hmm. Think about this for a second. For the last however many years you've been working, 20, 30, 40 years, your investment portfolio, I don't care if it's your 401k, your IRA, or your taxable brokerage account, your portfolio has had one primary job. That one primary job has been to grow, to get ready for this time period in your life. Right? You haven't thought about taking income out of the portfolio while you're still working, or doing withdrawals out of the IRA while you're still working. Right. You're in the contribution, the growth mode. All that changes when we retire. So suddenly we're asking our portfolio. It's like it's a human being. We're asking it, hey, can you do something different? And that something different is create income for me. Completely different. Completely different. So now when we shift to the income producing mindset, that's a fundamental transition. Now we're thinking about things like is my allocation that I have now, i.e., a growth-oriented allocation, is that the allocation I want going into retirement? You're probably very aggressive while you're still working. Most people are. But do you want to be that aggressive when you're in retirement? Volatility. I promise majority of you have never panicked in all the major market declines we've had since you've been working. Why? Because you didn't care. You still had a paycheck coming in. And like I said a moment ago, trust me, you are going to care when you are retired because that's your last big chunk of money. So how much volatility can you withstand in your portfolio? Liquidity. Do you have funds to tap into if something major happens? Do you have cash reserves? What are gonna be our income sources? Do you have some rentals out there? Portfolio income, Social Security pensions, etc. Where's it all going to come from? We need to know that in in this time period. What's going to be our withdrawal strategy? I saw something yesterday. I can't remember what news organization it was. Cause I saw the headline. I'm like, no, here we go. I've told you, and many of you know this, that the rule of thumb on Wall Street is a four percent withdrawal strategy, right? And I've told you I never once have ever I ever told a client, do four percent. We are comfortable the way we manage money, the way we allocate the the the type of investments we use, we are comfortable with a six percent withdrawal. That's what we do. But that doesn't mean our competitors down the street are, they may want more, they may want less. But this article that I saw yesterday said, basically because of the growth of the stock market the last few years, that the industry is now switching from four percent to as much as six percent. Like, well, we've been there for twenty five years, I've been in business, or thirty years. So that shifts. And that's the first time I've seen that happen. I'm happy to see it because it's I tell you what, I mean, think about it. You got two million dollars to do a four percent withdrawal, that's only 80,000 bucks a year. Not much. Six percent on two hundred thousand. Now we're talking 120,000. Now we're starting to stay somewhere. But again, you can just you can pick any number you want. You just have to be careful how it's managed, what the allocation is, do we have non-correlated assets, all those things? So really pinpoint in what is that withdrawal strategy? And then lastly, of course, when we're talking about your portfolio now, shifting from growth to income paying you, what's my tax strategy? We've gone over that many times. You know, it taxes can be a major surprise to a new retiree. And you have to plan for it. And again, this the this the this time period year three, that's a great time to start really honing in on that withdrawal strategy, making some tweaks into the portfolio before retirement. You got a couple years to kind of get used to it and understanding tax ramifications, et cetera. All right. Let's come back to year number four and then the magical year of five. Back to the John Sanchez Show on News Talk 780K, which, all right, this is a very important topic. Again, our five-year checklist before retirement. What we need to do each year over the next five years. If you need help with this, come to us. Set an appointment with me. Just go to SanchezGaunt.com, set the appointment online, call the office 800-1801. And I I purposely did not put this topic in our checklist because you know it. And that is, I don't care if it's year one of the five years to retirement. Get the estate plan done. If you have the existing one, let me take a look at it. Let's see if it needs restatement. If you don't have an estate plan, please talk to me about it. Let's have a conversation, one-on-one conversation. There's no charge or anything for that. Let's just do a video call together and let's chat about your situation. Cause you can go through all this work that I've shared with you, and all of a sudden, you lose it all because you didn't didn't do the estate plan. You didn't create it. So please don't do that. Again, that's all I'm gonna mention about. You know the importance of Let's recap real quick. All right, our five-year plan. Year number one, we got to figure out what retirement's actually going to cost. So we need to really start honing in on what our income and our expenses are. Number two, we're the cleanup man. We're going to clean things up, clean up the balance sheet. What debts do I want to follow that I want of to follow me into retirement? What I want to get rid of. Year number three, we prepare for the portfolio for the paycheck to stop. We shift our mindset from pure growth to now. Is this going to be a portfolio that can provide the income that I need for the next 30 years of my retirement? But by the way, I can't put it all in income-oriented ones. Inflation will eat me alive. I've got to grow it. So it's that balancing act between how much growth do I need, how much income do I need, how much fixed income do I need, how much variable income do I need. There's a lot of things that go into that. Now, year number four, you're smelling retirements right around the corner. This is where we get serious about Social Security and Medicare and tax planning. Year number four, don't say to yourself, hey, I'm now 62. I'm eligible for Medicare. I'm sorry, for Social Security. Let's start the withdrawal. Give me the money. No, no, no, no, no. Wrong thing to do. You have to understand all the things that go into that decision. Do I claim early, i.e. 62? Do I claim a FRA or full retirement age? Do I delay my benefits until age 70 so I can get that 8% increase from full retirement age to age 70? What am I gonna do with my spouse? What's the spousal benefits? We're gonna do the same thing with her or him? What's our survivor considerations? What's our life expectancy? And what are gonna be our other income sources? But remember, if you are retiring around Medicare age, which is 65, understand that enrollment timing and how Medicare coordinates with your employer coverage. Very important. Remember, Medicare and Social Security both say apply for your benefits at least three months before you need them. And that little gotcha when we start talking about Medicare, Irma, I-R-M-A-A, right? Those of you with higher income can increase your Medicare Part B and D premiums. And the calculations generally look back over the past two years of your income. So that's always a big shock for retirees if they don't plan for it. Part B, Part D is going to cost you lot more, again, unless you plan for it. And now we get into year five. This is the practice year. We're going to practice retirement before we retire. Let's do a little retirement test drive. If your plan says I need $9,000 a month, then by gosh, start living on $9,000 a month. You may find it's too much, too little, right? Real life is completely different than what the paper's telling you. So year five is the test drive time. You do all these to wrap it up, year one through five, have a great advisor taking care of you, watching things. Now you've increased the odds that you're going to have a successful retirement, which is my dream and my goal for each and every one of you. God bless. Have a great weekend. I'll be back with you on Monday. Take care.