Accurate Solutions (08/02/26)

The following is paid for by accurate solutions. Information on the program is intended to solely further the public's general knowledge about the product. Opinions expressed should not be relied upon for any purpose by any member of the audience. News Radio KDK does not guarantee the accuracy of any of the information aired on the following program. Blueprints. They're not just plans, but a step-by-step guide for success. Blueprints make up the floor plan of your forever home. Blueprints are the designed essence of your dream car. Maybe you could have a drawn-out purpose for your money. Kirk Canotic and Ethan Lane are here to discuss your blueprint for a better tomorrow. This is your retirement blueprint. Welcome to Your Retirement Blueprint with Kurt Kinode and Ethan Lane with Accurate Solutions Group. I'm Mark Elliott, glad you're with us. The team at Accurate Solutions Group is here to walk you through the retirement blueprint. Name of the show, right? Your retirement blueprint. Income, investment, taxes, health care, legacy planning, Social Security, Medicare. All those decisions we have to make are so important. How are we going to make sure that our money can last 30 or 40 years? That's crazy to think about that. But that is not unusual to have a 30-year retirement in today's world. So if you want to find out more about Kurt and Ethan and the team, you can always go to the website, ASG retire.com, accurate solutions group, ASG retire.com. You can always give them a call with questions to talk about a lot of things as we do every week on this program. Maybe we don't touch on the subject you'd like to know more about. Call them, ask them. Maybe we do talk about something that you'd like to learn more about and how that really affects you. 412, 515, 33. 55. Totally complimentary, no cause to you. An opportunity for you to get some clarity into your retirement picture, though. 412-515-3355. All right, Kurt, Ethan and I are just going to listen because we don't really understand the wealthy. So you are the wealthy one. You've been in business for a long time. You've been in the business since 1989. And so you understand this wealthy world where Ethan and I quite, Ethan's better than I. He's way ahead of the game. But you think about the. quietly wealthy. Because a lot of times, Kurt, we've talked about this before. When I coached at Kansas State in the 90s, our biggest donor was a farmer. He'd come into all these things in his overalls and stuff. Nobody would have guessed that's the rich dude that this is named after or whatever. So the quietly wealthy, they build these fortunes without the flash. I would probably prefer to have the Porsche 9-11 rolling up. And then I'd be all my money is going to that car. That is not how the wealthy, the quietly wealthy do it. In your experience, Kurt, what makes the wealthy approach their finances differently? From others. Well, I could give you the cookie cutter answers, which, I mean, are realistic. I mean, they focus on strategies that help build long-term wealth, not just to look wealthy. So it's not about status to them. They use money as a tool. And I can tell you that they treat their finances like a business with intentional decisions about saving and spending and investing, and that is 100% true.

But the reality of it is, Mark, like you were mentioning, there was a book back, and this was in the 70s or 80s, but it was called The Millionaire Next Door. And it's about how some individuals have accumulated wealth, and you would never know it, like you had mentioned. And I'll give you a great example. I just read a book, and it's a tremendous book. It's called The Art of Spending Money, Simple Choices for a Richer Life. And it's by Morgan Housel. Morgan Housel is the same author who wrote the book, The Psychology of Money. So it's a really, really good read. But within a couple of those chapters, it talks about everyone has their thing. And so those who are wealthy, I'll give you an example. And Chris probably wouldn't want me saying this on the radio, but I'll say it anyway. You'll see me every once in a while shopping for clothes at Walmart because clothing is not my thing. I don't need to have, you know, the name brands and the fancy stuff. If it's functional, if it works for me, I'll just buy it a Walmart. But. If I need a new noodle rod to go steelhead trout fishing up in Erie, I will go and get an $800 or $1,000 fishing rod because that's my thing. So everyone has their thing, and the wealthy what I've found is they spend money on their thing, but they save money in other areas of life that just really doesn't make them happy. So they're not spending money on status. They're spending money on the thing that makes them happy, and they're saving money in other areas. I'll give you another quick example. I have a really good client, probably 20 years at this point. They've been clients up in Oil City. We used to be an executive at Quaker State. Did a really good job saving. In their mid-80s right now, and they still live in a split entry, Ryan home, still have linoleum countertops in the kitchen. Nothing's been really updated. It's clean, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's not stained, but that's not their thing. They still live in this modest home, but when he retired, they bought a $300,000 RV, and for about 15 years, they traveled the country because that was their thing. So it's interesting. They don't spend money. Based on status, they spend money on what makes them happy and gives them that comfortable retirement, but they save money in other areas. And I like that. That was, you know, the Morgan Housel book, The Psychology of Money that you referenced. And one of his stories was that he worked as a like a bellman or a valet, Parker at a fancy, you know, L.A. hotel. And he said, you know, people that come in and their Ferraris and stuff, he goes, typically the more you knew about them, the less money they had. Everything they had was in that car. They just wanted to look the part. Yeah. So I like, those are some great examples right there. Ethan, what is the habit that you see among wealthy individuals that really anyone could adopt? Yeah, I mean, one is being frugal and understanding, like Kurt said, where you should be spending your money, what is important to you. And, you know, really having a good idea of what your income is and where it's going, making your money work for you.

A high percentage of wealthy individuals have a detailed financial plan and budget. So they're not just saying, I've got this money coming in. I'm pretty sure I'm not spending more than I'm making. No, they're taking some time to look at where it's going and really understanding where some places they might be able to cut back, even if they don't have to. That's a good habit to develop. They know where it's going. It allows them to save and invest with intention. And really, it's not about restriction, especially in the wealthier case. It's not about restriction. It's about making sure your money's aligned with your goals and what's important. I think that's extremely important. Ethan, you had mentioned being intentional. And having a plan, like what we do here at Accord Solutions Group is your retirement blueprint. we will sit down in a vision meeting and really just try and help you determine what is important to you. What are you trying to accomplish? What is your vision? What is your goals? What's important? And being intentional about how you direct those dollars and having a budget in place to make sure you can live out those dreams in retirement. If you have not been intentional, if you haven't thought about these types of things when it comes to budgeting or cash flow or how your money is going to be invested in retirement, call us 412. 515-335. That's our phone number. We can have a virtual meeting and in-office meeting and begin to develop your own retirement blueprint so you can be much more intentional of what you're trying to accomplish in retirement. 412, 515-33-55. Kurt, what are some of the ways that the wealthy build and then maintain multiple sources of income? Might be easier if I'm wealthy to have multiple sources of income, I suppose, but how do they go about that? Well, relying on a single paycheck or even just one source of retirement income, I mean, that can obviously be risky. The wealthy actively seek out other sources of income. And for most people, this isn't going to be the case. But for some, you know, maybe it's a business venture. Maybe it's real estate for a lot of our clients. It's dividend paying stock. So there's different ways you can look at income streams in retirement. You can utilize... fixed or fixed index annuities, which provide you a guaranteed lifetime income. Now, be careful the guarantees are based on the claims paying ability of the issuing carrier. So you want to make sure you get a quality company, but you could look. to safe, guaranteed sources of income. You could look to market-based incomes with real estate that traditionally generates a nice cash flow or dividend-paying stocks. Or we have a lot of clients who are retired, but they have rental properties, the physical rental properties. So a lot of different things, but you diversify the sources of income. Here's an interesting one I ran into, not too long ago. Someone came into our office and done a great job saving. He had a couple million dollars. He was a retired gentleman. And he said, one of his favorite things to do in retirement is buy used lawnmowers on Facebook market, restore them, repair them, and sell them. So he'd buy them for $40 and spend his time and flip them and sell them for $100 when he didn't need to. But he enjoyed doing it. So they also find their passions and keep sticking with it.

So I like that. I do. It's kind of what Kurt was saying. Find what you want to do. Focus really your monies in that direction. But make sure you have other pots of money, I suppose. So we're talking about the habits of the wealthy in ways you could apply them to your own life. So, Ethan, what are some of the ways the wealthy reduce the amount of taxes they owe? And obviously that helps you keep more of your earnings. Yeah, absolutely. The wealthier people tend to focus a lot on tax efficiency, and really they should. The more income, the more retirement accounts they have, more than likely, the higher their taxes are going to be, and the more that they're going to pay in taxes. So they really need to focus on tax efficiency. A lot of times they'll work with professionals to use every available strategy that's out there. Maybe they're managing their capital gains and they're strategic about how they're giving to charities. And that can help minimize their tax burden. And the less they pay in taxes, the more capital that they have to reinvest and grow. And one family I'm thinking of, I met with them a long time ago, years ago. They'd come into our office and. everything they had was in Roth IRAs. And it was over a million dollars in Roth IRAs. And I'm thinking about how long did that take them to convert and the diligence that they had to have to pay the taxes then and make it worth it over time. And one thing that they also told me was, All of the TVs in their houses were the old box TV still. So they're another great example of the wealthy that are still frugal, even though they didn't have to be, but they focused their whole saving strategy on tax efficiency, and now their wealth is growing tax-free for them. So you think about how the wealthy think about their money and how they use it and certainly how to help benefit their family as they move forward. Kurt, I think at the end of the day, it really seems that that the wealthy may be a little bit more strategic than the average American. So if being strategic seems to be the common thread here, what's one of the most important things maybe for our listeners to consider doing right now? Well, I mean, so if you are wealthy and you have the ability to meet certain criteria, a lot of wealthy individuals look for alternative investments. And when I say alternative, that's a big buzzword in our industry today. are investments that are not correlated to the overall stock market, meaning if the S&P 500, if that's the index that you follow, or the Dow Jay Jones, traditionally, alternative investments do not follow the direction of that. Now, obviously, if the S&P's up, alternative investments could be up, but when the S&P goes down in a correction or a recession, a lot of times the alternative investments work opposite of that. And some alternative investments mark, and these are buzzwords within our industry, private equity and hedge funds. And those aren't typically available to the average investor because of also minimums that they have within these investments, but also you have to meet a certain criteria to be considered.

eligible to invest in these because there can be some risk associated with that. So look towards alternative investments such as private equity and hedge funds. And we're talking today about some strategies that the wealthier people use to build their wealth and maintain their wealth. And if you're listening today and maybe your handful of years away from retirement and you want to end up like these families that we're talking about, you want to learn more about these different types of strategies. Give us a call at 412-515335. Or maybe you're listening and you've done a great job saving for your retirement, but you want to minimize your taxes. You want to look at ways where you could be more tax efficient. You can protect the income that you have coming in and you preserve what you have and hopefully see it grow over time. Give us a call it 412-515335, and we'll start working on a retirement blueprint that's customized to you and your unique situation. Again, that's 412-5153-35. Totally complimentary, no cost, no obligation, no pressure, no judgment. The team at Accurate Solutions Group is here to help, and I think the biggest thing you get out of is clarity into your situation. Where are you? Do you have enough? Do you not have enough? Are we close? How do we do it? That's where Kurt and Ethan and the team at Accurate Solutions Group come alongside to help guide you. 412 5153355. We're just getting started today on Your Retirement Blueprint with Kurt and Ethan from Accurate Solutions. We're back with more.

Hello, everyone. This is Ethan Lane from Accurate Solutions Group. Just wanted to let you know that you can now take our show with you on the go. Your retirement blueprint podcast is now available to stream on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, and Spotify. Simply log on, search for your retirement blueprint, and enjoy. Also, feel free to click the subscribe button to get alerts on our weekly episode release. Again, thanks for tuning in. Without further delay, enjoy the rest of the show. I'm Welcome back to Your Retirement Blueprint with Ethan Lane of Accurate Solutions Group. Again, the website is ASGretire.com. A lot of information there about Kurt Ethan and the team, but also information about upcoming events. Just a lot of information on the website. Check it out. ASGretire.com. And of course, we have questions about anything we talked about in the first segment or anything we talked about in this segment or just anything that's on your mind that's concerning you about retirement, whether you're retired or getting closer to retirement. 412 515, 3355, 4125, 412 515, 3355, totally complimented to chat with the team at Accurate Solutions Group. I'm Mark Kelly, glad you're with us. So, Ethan, let's talk about something that keeps a lot of people awake at night. Your parents or grandparents retired with a pension, a guaranteed check every single month for the rest of their lives. The company handled the investing, managed the risk, and our folks just cashed the check. Pretty good deal. Well, that is gone for most Americans today. That pension is bye-bye, no longer in play for most of us. And so, Ethan, if the pension has disappeared, is there anything that has replaced it? And is that replacement enough? Yeah, I mean, that was the foundation of my grandparents' retirement and a lot of the listeners' parents' retirements. And I like to say it's one of my grandfather's fault that pensions have gone away because he started receiving a pension from Armco, the steel mill here in Butler, when he was about 62. And he's still here today at 92. So Armco has not been thrilled that they've been paying him for 30 years. And so you're seeing companies, fewer and fewer companies offer a pension. And instead, they're offering a 401k. But that shifts the responsibility of saving for retirement onto you, the worker, the employee. Now. Most of the time, they're going to help with a company match. As long as you contribute X percent, maybe it's 3 percent or 4 percent, they'll match you to that same percent. Now, there's always a cap. They're only going to go up to 3, 4, maybe 6 percent as long as you're putting that money in.

But they're putting the responsibility of saving for retirement onto you. But 401K, that's a powerful savings vehicle. But it's never really designed to be a pension and pay you lifetime income. It was designed to help you grow your money while you worked so that when you retire, you can withdraw from it and maybe turn it into your own pension. But saving and creating lifetime income. Those are two very different skills. And we see that people don't know how to differentiate the two. They come into our office and say, you know what, I've got this 401k. And when I retire, I'm going to just take income from it as I need. And that's not a plan. It's really not an income plan. And that's not going to pay you lifetime income. You know, the traditional three-legged stool for retirement was the pension. Social Security and personal savings, and that's really kind of collapsed into what we see now as the two-legged stool of just Social Security and your 401K in savings. Really a big difference between the pension and the 401K is the pension was pretty much guaranteed income, month after month after month for as long as you lived. 401k, you could go to your 401k site, look up your balance, and it'll say, well, you could get, you might get. There's just no guarantee in that. And I think when you think about saving versus creating income, so the 401K and IRA world are really important for you putting together the retirement blueprint that you put together for your clients. The balance matters, right, how much they have and what they need also factors into all of that. But the 401k and IRA are important tools in the retirement blueprint, but they're not the plan. The plan is separate from that. So saving versus creating income is a totally different game, I guess. And, you know, if you said, all right, hey, I got, Ethan, I got $400, I got a million bucks in my 401K. That sounds like a lot of money. And if I'm saying that, that number on the statement could be a little deceiving. Why is that? Yeah, absolutely. And Mark, I like the point that you made about it's a difference between savings and income. And even a lot of 401K calculators say, hey, you could turn this 401k into this much income, but they don't. know your situation. They're just running Monte Carlo simulators in the background. So I don't always trust those calculators. But, you know, that million dollar number could be deceiving because that lump sum is really abstract and it's volatile. It's invested in the market. So, you know, a million dollars today could be $850,000 the next time we go through a market dip or a market recession. So volatility oftentimes creates paralysis where retirees will freeze. And that's our focus at Accurate Solutions Group is helping those people who have accumulated wealth for their retirement. How can we distribute that back to you no matter what the market's doing? And it requires a shift of approach and a shift of a mindset. We want to help you understand that approach with a retirement blueprint. There's no cost. There's no obligation. You do have to pick up the phone and call at 412.

5153355, and we'll start by gathering information, asking you questions that what's important to you about your money? What are your goals for your money? When do you want to retire? What are your hopes and dreams? We call it dream casting and accurate solutions group. And then we'll walk through a customized retirement blueprint, completely customized to you in your situation. But again, you have to pick up the phone and call it 412-515335. You know, another factor on that million dollar 401K, one is if it's all in the market and the market's dropped 20 percent, you're now down to 800,000. That's certainly one factor. The other factor is if it's in the traditional 401k, it means you haven't paid taxes on it. Every dollar you pull out. Uncle Sam is your partner in this. So go back to that original million. Maybe it's about 750,000 after taxes. So there's a lot of whammies there. And at the end of the day, I think the fear that people fear that they feel, Ethan, is not really irrational, right? Because longevity is such a big deal in this. We don't know if you're going to live to 75 or 105. So true. I mean, fear in retirement is rational. I mean, this is a new phase of life. I understand why people come into it with trepidation. If you don't have a plan, there's reason to be fearful. If you have a plan, that should remove a lot of the fear. But longevity is a big risk. If you're married, there is almost a 60% chance that at least one spouse in the couple, age 62, will live until at least age 90. So a 60% chance, one of you, if you're married, and you're 62, are going to make it all the way to 90. A lot of you might even make it further. And we consider longevity as a blessing, right? As long as there's quality of life, that is a great blessing. But every extra year stretches that lump sum thinner and thinner. You've got to invest it properly and you have to withdraw from it properly to make sure it lasts as long as you do. And think about all the costs that will continue to increase, mainly health care. That's the biggest one for you. What we've seen is as you age, your activity decreases, so you're not spending quite as much money, but the costs of health care increase, and that's really where your biggest expense is going to be. The question isn't always, do I have enough money? It's, can I make it last long enough? And with the proper plan and the proper strategy, you know, we can help you with that accurate solutions group. So if somebody's listening to this right now and they kind of feel that nod in their stomach right now, they go, you know what, I've really done a pretty good job saving. My IRA in 401k totals I think are good, but I don't have anything like you're talking about, a real income strategy. How do you help people work through that? Yeah, again, the first steps to contact us and we'll walk you through some of the questions that we ask, you know, if you have a spreadsheet.

That's not an income plan. If you don't know where income is going to come from your investments in years one through 30 of your retirement, that's not a true written income plan. And it all starts with figuring out your spending habits. We like to call it a top-down analysis approach where we're going to ask you questions like, what are you bringing home? So if you're working, what are you bringing home from your pay? If you're married, you and your spouse, you typically know what's hitting your bank each pay or each month. So let's figure that out. Then let's figure out, are you saving places? Do you have a cushion in your savings account? For those of you who don't have a cushion and it's more like an in-and-out account where you have a thousand dollars, a couple thousand dollars in there at a time, that tells us that you're spending everything that's coming in. So we would set that number as your target in retirement because we know that's your normal spending habits. For those of you who aren't spending what's coming in and you're building a savings account or maybe you're pushing money to a brokerage account to invest, now we know a bit of a target of what your spending habits are. And we can work to figure out what you can afford to spend based on what you have saved. But the starting equation is always what are your spending habits? Because they will not change in retirement, especially in those early years. We call them the go-go years of retirement. We have to figure out your typical spending habits early. So, Ethan, let me give you a couple scenarios. One is that somebody has worked during their working years with a broker, for example, to help them figure out how to invest and how to grow their money. It makes a lot of sense to have somebody alongside to help you grow your money. But that person really is not built on the retirement world, right? The taxes and lessening some of the risk at times and putting some other options in there for creating income and legacy planning and all of that that the retirement planners like you and the team at accurate solutions you do for people. So that's one scenario where they've actually worked with somebody, had an advisor helping them grow their money. The other scenario is that most of us just kind of put her head down, raise a family, put our money in the 401K and hope it all works out. So they've never really sat down with an advisor, whether it's the broker type or a retirement planner like yourself. Either scenario, what is the value of getting a second opinion? Yeah, I mean, the value is huge. You should absolutely get a second opinion if you've been doing it on your own or if you've worked with a broker, even if you've worked with an advisor up until this point, you need to get a second opinion. You know, you don't know what you don't know. And if you're working with a broker, they know how to help accumulate and grow your money. But what they don't specialize in is spending that money and withdrawal strategies. It's all a math problem. You know, we have to incorporate how long you think you might live, all of your sources of income, the tax implications associated with that, when to take Social Security, how to claim a pension. All of these factors are really just a math problem that's unique and customized to you. I mean, we see people all the time who are planning for themselves and doing it on their own and coming in and saying, well, I'm going to claim my pension this way because everyone I know has done that. Your situation's unique and different from them.

You have to look at all the factors of an income plan and how that applies to you. And if you've not done that, your advisor's not done that, maybe your broker won't help you with something like that. Give us a call an accurate solutions group. Our number is 412-5-15. 3355, and we'll start working on a retirement blueprint that is all about you and your situation and your numbers, your goals, your concerns. There's no cost or obligation to work with us, but you have to pick up the phone and call us at 412-515335. So when we come back, Ethan's going to talk about taking your blueprint, really helping you build a blueprint that's going to help you turn that lump sum into a structured, dependable retirement paycheck. Then we're going to talk a little bit about Social Security, maybe building that income floor for retirement to have greater protection from stock market volatility. All that's ahead right here on your retirement blueprint with Ethan Lane of Accurate Solutions. We're back after this very quick time out. The following is paid for by Accurate Solutions.

Patrick with us today for your retirement blueprint talking about a lot of challenges that people have when we get to retirement. You think about it. We're basically the, you could say we're talking about the retirement paycheck predicament that we face. Where is our paycheck going to come from when we get into retirement? So we talked about the pension is gone for most of us. So the 401K. by itself is not a plan. It's not a guaranteed income for the rest of your life like a pension. So there's got to be solutions to this. And Ethan, you've said retirees need to stop thinking like investors who focus solely on growing their nest egg and start thinking in terms of building a lifetime income plan. Because you have that big number. Then you throw in your net worth because of the house and all that. But the house isn't cash available, right? I need a new roof. I can't just say, well, I think I'm just going to pull money out of my cash register of my house. That's not very good planning there. So the lifetime income is the key. If we had the monthly income, month after month after month, we wouldn't be very stressed. But if we're not really sure where the income is going to come from, we don't really know how much. That's where having that lifetime income plan that Kurt and Ethan and the team at Accords Solutions Group can help you with. So if I say that, don't focus solely on growth. Think about income. What does that mean? Yeah, I mean, in our opinion, returns in retirement are not nearly as critical. You hate to say they don't matter, but they don't matter nearly as much as they did while you were working and trying to grow your money to as high as you can get it. Now it's all about a focus on income, and we really have to do our best job to convey that to the client and show them that. I was just meeting with a couple who both have pensions and Social Security. combined, there were over $10,000 a month, and that was more than enough for this family to live comfortably, and they were still worried about a market recession. And so I had to help, you know, rewire their brain to say, you know, in their case, because they have the hardest part of the equation solved, which is income for life, they have it from pension and Social Security. They don't need to be as worried about a market recession. For those of you who don't have that and aren't blessed to have the pension, you are your own income from your investments. you have to make sure that you're investing and taking that income from proper places. You know, start with the foundation of retirement income. Consider separating your expenses into categories like must-haves and like-to-haves, right? This separation is a planning bedrock because each category demands a completely different investment strategy. We really want to build up the floor of guaranteed income from Social Security and maybe fixed or fixed indexed annuities that before you would ever think about that. You have to know the restrictions and things like that that come with it. But build up the floor of fixed income for your must-haves. and then leave the like-to-haves maybe from discretionary sources like dividend-paying stocks or, you know, bonds that do have a little bit of risk to it, knowing that that side of the income may not be as guaranteed, but you have the must-haves already solved for from the guaranteed sources of income in retirement. So I'm going to go with why I'm still working at 66, coming up on 67 at the end of this year, is because I paid more attention to like-to-have than the must-hast-havs, Ethan.

But that's okay. I've had fun, so whatever. Everybody does their own thing. I wish I had better strategies back in the day. So here's the deal. Once you know your number, and that is the income you need month after month to be able to survive, right? Pay the bills that you have to pay month after month. All right. So we know that number. Now what do we do with that number? Yeah. Well, can you make sure that income shows up no matter what the stock market is doing? I just mentioned building an income floor. It's a foundation of predictable income from predictable income sources for those must-haves. And that starts with optimizing social security. People do not put enough time and effort into understanding social security and how it applies to them. And again, it's a math equation. It's not always just, well, I'm going to take it as soon as I can because I don't know how long I'm going to live. And I just want to get my money back. No, we have to look at the tax implications from Social Security. We have to look at if you're married, which Social Security benefits the higher of the two. There's certain claiming strategies that you have to consider there. But if Social Securities and pensions don't cover the must-have number, then you're responsible for filling that gap. The goal here is to make sure that your essential bills are paid for by sources of protected income. that aren't affected by stock market volatility. And again, a tool that we use for that gap is oftentimes fixed or fixed indexed annuities. Those are funded through insurance companies. So before you ever invest in one or purchase one, you have to look at the strength of the issuing insurance company that you're going with. Make sure they've been around for a while. They have stable financial numbers and understand that the strength of that annuity is only backed up by the insurance company. But once you have that piece solved, provide a lifetime income stream for you that can bridge the gap from Social Security and pension and really build up the floor of income. Ethan, I'm going to throw this out there. Let's see if you know this. You've been doing this for well over a decade with Kurt and the team at Accurate Solutions Group. I did not know this. So I'm going to start my Social Security this year because I was born in 1959. So my full retirement age according to Social Security is 66 and 10 months. Well, my birthday's in November, which means 66 in 10 months, is September of this year. And I thought, you know what? I've got golf tournaments to play. Hotels to stay in at those golf tournaments in the summer. What if I just started four months early? I started in May, right? So, and it's going to be like a $60 reduction from what it would have to wait until September. I'm like, again, I think of the like to have rather than must have. So I'm like, okay, I can do that. That's not that big of a deal. Well, then I talked to the Social Security person. She goes, well, you know you have to give back a dollar for every three because it's the year of your full retirement age. I said exactly. So I'm thinking, for example, if I'd get three grand a month, I would get a check for $2,000 a month until I hit that full retirement age. Well, turns out what they do is they actually withhold three checks. So if I started in May, I would not get a check for May, June, July. August it starts, but Social Security always pays you the month after, which means I would actually start in September with an actual check. And then she goes, you know, for another $20 off that total, you can just start it in January, which means January, February, March, I don't get a check.

And then April, I would start it, but it actually doesn't actually come until May. So that's how we ended up there. I didn't know they withheld checks. So if you started at 64, does that mean six months you don't get a check? I mean, there's a lot of little subtle things in there that we don't really realize, I think, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, clearly, Social Security is about as clear as mud. You know, it's a complicated system that most people don't understand. And I've even seen people, I've even seen Social Security where it pays you your full benefit. And then whenever they get your tax return and see what your income was for the previous year, they send you a letter and say, oops, we overpaid you because you were working. And now you have to write them a check. I've seen that happen too. Maybe they've changed the system just a little bit. But Social Security is a confusing system. And if you're sitting here and. That's the foundation of your fixed income in retirement. It's critical that you get that right. You have to give us a call 412-515335 to look at a blueprint with all of your numbers and your information and what's important to you because these decisions are more critical than just doing what you think everyone else is. Your situation is different. Give us a call at 412515335 to begin working on a retirement blueprint specifically designed with you in mind. Again, that's 412515335. So really at the end of the day, every week on this program, you and Kurt give people the opportunity to call, have a phone conversation with one of you two or another advisor in the office at Accurate Solutions Group or do a Zoom call if they don't want to come in, just want to, hey, I've got a quick question, what do you think of this? Or come in and let's sit down and really talk about all of this when they... call, 412, 515, 3355. So when that happens, how do you walk them through building the type of income plan that you're talking about today? It all starts with figuring out what somebody spends. We've been amazed by how people do not have a grasp on that number whatsoever. There have been times in the past where we used to have people complete a budget. And they'd sit down and fill out line by line where their money's going and they'd hand it to us and we would review it. And we could see by first glance that they weren't accounting for everything that they were spending. And so we would do a top-down analysis where we would start by figuring out what income is coming in each and every month from their paychecks. and where their money is going, if they're building up a savings account or if it's clear to see that their savings is just in and out every single month. And so many times people would fill out this budget. And let's say in this example, they had $5,000 a month. And that's what they said, yes, we're comfortable on that. But they're bringing in $8,000 a month. And their savings account is not growing. That tells us they're spending $8,000 a month. So an income plan starts with being realistic with your spending, getting an idea of what you actually spend each month, and then finding your sources of income and properly timing, claiming them, like social security and pension if you have it. And if you don't have a pension, feeling that gap from your portfolio and your investments. This takes thought. It takes time to understand how you should be spending in retirement. But we want to unlock people's

approach at spending and help them understand, maybe you can spend more than you traditionally thought. A lot of the advisors out there want to stick with that 4% withdrawal rule. We want to help our clients see what is truly possible. And that starts with a true income plan and a retirement blueprint. Once we have an income plan set, we look at helping our clients with an investment strategy. that can marry that income plan. We help them look at tax efficient strategies in retirement. We help them with healthcare planning and legacy planning. All five areas are critical. And we find that most people have not spent the proper amount of time planning their retirement. We see people spending more time planning a week's vacation than they have on the next 20 or 30 years of their life in retirement. Give us a call at 41251355 and we'll work on a retirement blueprint completely customized to you. There's no cost or obligation to work with us, but pick up the phone and call 412 5153355. Totally complimentary. No cost to you might be the most important phone call you make because we are talking about the next 20, 30 years of your life. 412 515335. Back for our final segment with Ethan Lane of Accurate Solutions Group right here on your retirement blueprint. Thank you. Call Accurate Solutions Group today to see if they can help you keep your money where it belongs. Out of the garbage and in your pocket, 412 515335. That's 412 5153355.

Hello, everyone. This is Ethan Lane from Accurate Solutions Group. Just wanted to let you know that you can now take our show with you on the go. Your retirement blueprint podcast is now available to stream on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, and Spotify. Simply log on, search for your retirement blueprint, and enjoy. Also, feel free to click the subscribe button to get alerts on our weekly episode release. Again, thanks for tuning in. Without further delay, enjoy the rest of the show. Glad you with this today for your retirement blueprint with Kurt Kenote and Ethan Lane of Accurate Solutions Group. Again, there's a lot of information on the website and find out about upcoming advance webinars. Kurt need to put those together, they can pop them on their website. ASG retire.com. ASG retire.com. If you have any questions, the big beautiful bill, what about how do I make sure that my money last as long as I need it? 412, 515, 3355. I think the biggest question is, hey, we're going to be okay if we retire. If we are, then there's nothing to worry about. Have you guys seen that comedian that says, hey, there's two things to worry about. And, you know, I'm sick. So there's two things to worry about. Am I going to get better? Am I not going to get better? Well, if I'm going to get better, then there's nothing to worry about there. I guess the only thing to worry about is I'm not getting better. Am I going to live or am I going to die? If I'm going to live, I don't have to worry about it. But if I died, I mean, if he does that. It's really kind of funny. But at the end of the day, are you going to be okay if you retire? And if you are, great. But if you don't really know for sure, it's an opportunity to find out by talking to Kurt and Ethan and the team at Accord Solutions Group. 412-515-335. We're going to go to the mailbag today. Kurt, I'm going to start with you. And of course, our first question comes from Shelley and Gibsonia. And Kurt doesn't know all your situation. just from this question. And if you're actually sitting down with the team, you would actually, they would dig deeper to find out more. But we can ballpark an answer for you. So, Kurt, you're on the horn first. It's Shelley and Gibsonia. Guys, I've owned my own business for 25 years. I'm still going strong and I want to keep going for another 10 years or so. But what might I consider for helping plan my retirement exit strategy as a business owner? Wow. Where do we? We could do 10 shows just on this alone. So, first of all, congratulations, 25 years out in your own business. I think the statistics are within the first year of a business. And don't keep me to this, but I think 30 or 40% of all businesses fail in the first year. So you need to be congratulated on that. First thing I would say is that you want to keep going for another 10 years or so, but what if you can't? You know, oftentimes we want to keep working forever, but then it's out of our control. There's a health situation. Maybe there's a family issue coming up. So to plan your exit strategy, I can speak directly to this, being a business owner. You have to start that process well in advance. And even if you want to keep going for 10 years, Charlie, I would tell you now is the time to begin that process, not knowing what type of business.

First thing you're going to want to do is have your own retirement blueprint in place on an individual basis. But then you've got to plan additionally for the business aspect. Has a business valuation been done? Can that business be sold? Do you have someone within that organization, a key employee that may take that over, or maybe you have outside buyers coming in? Is it marketable as a business? There's so many different things. And I don't know a lot of the particulars, but I would encourage you, 412, 515, 33, 55, give us a call. we're happy to answer those questions for you. But you need to be congratulated, first of all. And then secondly, there's additional layers of planning. You have to plan individually. And then you also have to plan on the business side. Yeah, there's a whole lot involved in that. So, Kurt, you'd be a great person to talk to for Shelley. 412-51533. All right. Next question. Ethan, this is you. Jerry in Butler says, guys, one of our neighbors just admitted they fell for a scam and lost a few thousand dollars. It has me on high alert right now. How do I help make sure I don't become a victim of a scam? And I can tell you at 65, I get so many texts saying, hey, we've just renewed your bill for this at $389.50. Of course, if you want to decline, you know, if you don't want to do it anymore, here's the number to call us so we can. get rid of that and I just delete them and move on. But I get those all the time. Yeah. They're more and more prevalent. And, you know, good rule of thumb is just stop and think first. They try to put pressure on you to act now, do this right now. And if you're. caught off guard if you're nervous if there's some kind of you know money on the line then sometimes you're baited into acting quickly but stop and think and you know it reminds me back years ago when i was in college one of my roommate college roommates his grandmother fell for something just like that someone called her and said hey your your grandson is in jail and needs you to pay this right now and had she stopped and thought and said why don't i call him or his family hey first, then she wouldn't have fallen for something like that. So really stop and think you just have to be, you hate to say, you have to be suspicious of, you know, if it's a text you weren't expecting, if it's an email you weren't expecting, you go directly to the source. You don't click the links in the email. You don't even call the number in the text or the email. You'll look that organization up online on your own first and go right through those sources before you take action. They're trying to get you to react emotionally. They know we're emotional beings and fear and greed and stress and anxiety are real things. And if they can get you to act on that. That's where we get into trouble. Yeah, and emotions play a toll in almost everything, thinking towards investing, thinking towards your retirement plan, your emotions are key. That's how you make decisions. Give us a call if you haven't put a plan in place. If you're worried about what the markets might do or how your investments are positioned or you're worried that you don't have a plan in place and you're close to retirement.

Call us at 412-5-15335. We'll start the process of going through your very own retirement blueprint. It starts with you. What's important to you? What are your goals? What are your concerns? We'll help you plan for income, investments, tax-efficient strategies. healthcare planning, and legacy planning. We'll take our time through that process. So we won't leave you with your head spinning on all five of those areas, but that's what goes into a retirement blueprint. Give us a call at 412-5155. You know, a lot of people get upset about ICE and all they're doing, well, they would not like me because all of these scammers that take advantage of us old folks like me at 65 or older, death penalty is what you get. How about that? Deal with that. These scammers are so good. How about put all that effort into a real job? You might be really successful. All right. Here's one for you, Kerr, Jenny and Saxonburg. Guys, my mom is no longer interested in living in some sort of assisted living facility. She wants to stay home as long as possible, so she isn't around too many other people regularly. I'm able to take care of her and I'm happy to do it. Should she go ahead and cancel her long-term care insurance policy, or should we have her keep it a little longer just in case it doesn't work out for me to care for her? That is a good question. That's an emotional question. It's a monetary question, but it's also emotional as well. So first thing I would say is if your mom has been an assisted living but is coming out because she doesn't like that anymore and you're still comfortable knowing you can take care of her. I think that's a great thing, but your mom was in assisted living for a reason to begin with. And normally, Mark, what we see, statistically speaking, is if someone is receiving assisting living benefits. Traditionally over time, and it could take a longer period of time, but over time it goes from assisted living to personal care and from personal care, sometimes unfortunately, to skilled care. So when someone has a long-term care policy already in place, I seldom, if ever, tell someone to cancel that. If it's a budgeted item, And the budget allows you to continue to pay those premiums. First of all, long-term care is horribly hard to qualify for today. There's only five or six providers. There used to be hundreds of providers. And now a lot of times, long-term care companies are beginning to increase and try and price people out of these policies. So if you have it, it's affordable. And the benefits are reasonable. If it covers enough on a daily basis with an elimination period and a lifetime maximum of three or five. years of benefits. I would tell you to hold on to it because you may need that. If you do have questions, then you just want that policy reviewed. 412-5-15-33-55. Give us a call. We're happy to do that for you. We're happy to do that for any listeners today because there are alternatives to long-term care. If you don't have it, it's something you're considering. There really are some incredible numbers. From 1980 to 2010, the amount of people that hit 90 or older kept going has tripled.

They're predicting that from now until 2040, that number will triple again of people who are 90 and older. So, yeah, this is a big, big thing. So great question, Jenny. Final question. This goes to you, Ethan. This is Alex in Pittsburgh. Guys, our daughter has a dream of starting her own business, but she needs help with a startup cost. She asks us for a 20,000 loan to get started, and her plans look solid, but there are no guarantees she can pay us back if her business fails. Should we still lend her the money, Ethan? Oh, man, why did I get that question? I'm glad you got that. Yeah, that's a hard question. And I just had a situation. It's very similar, not starting a business, but buying a house, you know, and they're having a difficulty selling their house. Family and money becomes fairly sticky, right? You know, if you're going to loan that money to a loved one, we've always said, loan it with the intention that it's a gift, right? It's not a loan. You may not get that money back because it's a loved one, right? There's no legal, if you're not taking legal steps to make it a true loan, then it really is a gift. So that has to be money that you feel as though you can give and not get back with any type of interest. And that could come with tax implications to your plan, depending on where you're taking the money from to gift it or loan it to your loved one. It could come with long-term ramifications. We've put a withdrawal of 20, 30,000 in a plan and looked... 15, 20 years later, and that $20,000 withdrawal missing out on compound interest and rates of return could lead to a $150,000 long-term consequence. So we want to make sure before giving the okay on something like that, that it can fit into your plan and you have that available to you, and you can live within the long-term ramifications. Yeah, I agree with you, Ethan, about... It's not alone. It's a gift because when you factor in, again, statistically speaking, a lot of businesses fail within the first year. The plan may be solid. Everything may be great. And circumstances could come up beyond someone's control where that business doesn't succeed. So again, if it's look monetarily. Can you afford that in your plan, your retirement blueprint? And if you can, then factor it in like Ethan had mentioned as a gift. Because if you don't, you know, the worst thing in the world is money to come between relationships. And money has a tendency to always do that. And when we've talked like one-off withdrawal, we call those like one-off withdrawals in a plan, again, I mentioned briefly, but you have to think about the tax consequences. If you're taking it from a 401k or an IRA, Remember, that's taxable. You have to take more than that $20,000 out to get the $20,000 you need, and that could impact your Social Security income and other sources of income. So think about it also from a tax perspective.

So there is no question occurred. I think when there's so many questions. So I always like the mailbag because the questions are all over the place. These are great questions today, I think. And I'm sure people have questions about the big, beautiful bill and all that. How will that really affect us? And boy, should I now take advantage and maybe move some more money into the tax-free world by using the Roth conversion world? There's so many things going on right now. I mean, this is the perfect opportunity for them to talk with you and your team at Accurate Solutions Group. 100%. I mean, it's not just about investments and your investment allocation. It's transitioning from growing assets and then transitioning into spending assets in retirement. It's a whole different ballpark. And then, so, you know, we look at those five key areas like Ethan had mentioned, income, taxes, legacy planning. health care planning. Those are all, and then your investment allocation, those are all key and critical. And with changes in policy changes within Washington and even on a state level, within Pennsylvania, when the state changes their taxing, whether it's on a state level or a local level, that all plays into your retirement blueprint. We pride ourselves and our team prides itself on trying to stay abreast of these situations as much as possible. And if your current advisor, if you're a do-it-yourself or if you don't have an advisor and you're still working, you have 401K. Definitely take advantage of the opportunity and no cost, no obligation consultation. Simply call it 412-515335. We can have a virtual meeting. We can have just a conversation. We can have you in for a vision meeting here in the Butler Township location. But take that first step. Call us at 412-515335. Thank you. Visit AccurateRadio.com and put your portfolio to the test with our checklist challenge. You can also check out our other offers from Accurate Solutions Group. That's AccurateRadio.com. Investment advisory services offered through ASG Investment Management LLC. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principle, any references to protection, safety, or lifetime income generally refer to fixed insurance products, never securities or investments. Insurance guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims-paying abilities of the issuing carrier. This radio show is intended for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be used as a sole basis for financial decisions, nor should it be construed as advice designed to meet the particular needs of an individual's situation. Solutions Group is not permitted to offer and no statement made during this show shall constitute tax or legal advice. Our firm is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. government or any governmental agency. The information and opinions contained herein provided by third parties have it obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed by accurate solutions group. This radio show is a paid placement.

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