Haven Financial Group Radio - 12/01/24

make your nest egg last. Your tune to the Haven Financial Group Radio Show with your host Larry Kolvig and Kim Karrigan your guides to weekly retirement confidence. If you're interested in protecting and growing what you have, let us be your financial safe haven. The phone nines are always open at six point two five oh four eighty four hundred. Now get your financial questions ready because the Haven Financial Group Radio Show starts now.

And this is as good a time as any to maybe start thinking about your retirement and if you're in it, making sure you've got all your bases covered before the end of the year, because that certainly marks a very important time for a lot of issues.

to be. You can doualas yourself with all kinds of terminology and technology and all those things that may paralyze you from making decisions, hopefully not good decisions, and those are the things we want to just remind people of in this show today.

of year. Those are some issues that you want to start thinking about. As Larry was just saying, as we see twenty twenty five on the horizon, a tax planning checklist again, twenty twenty five right on the horizon, some things that maybe you need to take care of before the year comes to an end. And finally, don't forget your estate planning checklists. All of these very important issues. Like you said, Larry, I think they can be overwhelming.

They certainly can be overwhelming at this time of year. But we're going to try to make it as simplistic for folks as we possibly can.

I know budgets are affect did with inflation, all the things we've talked about throughout the year, But maxing the four one k's out, maxing those IRA contributions, maybe that means contributing to your iras, taking advantage of those catch up if you're over fifty, just a little bit of that over time can make a huge difference to your retirement savings. And social security. We teach classes all year one because we love to educate a number two. They're

well attended because it should be an educated decision. So many people have this mindset that sixty two, I'm going to do it, when that does not make sense for everybody waiting later seventy you know, really looking at that taking advantage of those increases, especially if you're working, continue to work and don't need the money, rather than just making bad decisions of turning it on early, regretting it knowing that at some point you made a wrong decision.

things off until the end or find out afterwards. So the timing of these things, and I'll sprinkle the other timelines in there too, healthcare costs reviewing that we are just coming off an extremely busy annual enrollment for Medicare, and Glenn and Isabella we've able to help a lot of people. They're here from sun up to sundown pretty much six days a week because people need guidance right away.

People think, well, if I'm getting guidance or advice on this, I'm paying more, which in the healthcare is not true. So have somebody work for you looking at all the different options you and I Kim. We're going to talk about a state planning here in a little bit, another great topic which we'll talk more here in the show. But be careful because as we visit with those that are planning for retirement or in retirement, I'm all about and I know maybe a lot of the listeners are

about generosity at this time of the year. That's great, but don't let it hinder or affect your future retirement plans. Yeah, it's great to bless those grandkids and kids, at least I hope it is, or maybe not, but we hope. So we don't want to rack up debts or deplete savings or retirement because that might be hard to catch up. And you know, this credit card interest is still through the roof. These are all things to be wary about.

And then, as Kyle and I have talked about in recent shows, reviewing those investments, making sure that whoever you're working with maybe taking advantage of tax loss harvesting to affects those end of your tax returns. All of this is things at Haven Financial Group that we do in house.

They don't have to be under the same roof. But as many have said, which is the greatest compliment, it's nice to have a CPA, which is lance on the tax planning, the investment team, healthcare insurance, long term care, the estate planning attorneys. We have that all that here at Haven Financial Group. And these are conversations that are not just happening at the end of the year, but they're happening throughout the year rather than waiting for the calendar year to be completed.

point two five zero four eight four zero zero. You call that number, tell them that you heard us here on the radio and you want to set up a consultation. Go in for free consultation, sit down and talk about the things that you're concerned about. Now, Larry, at this time of year, it might be getting a little bit late to get those appointments in before we hit twenty twenty five, right, but that doesn't matter. Still get in and get your appointment set up.

what costs are because transparency, transparency is extremely important. But if you give us a call, come on in. You have nothing to lose. If you're not getting the attention, you owe it to yourselves. Why not get some attention?

considering roth convert maximizing your retirement contributions. When we come back, we're going to talk about retirement account contributions and a check up on that. We'll look at that a little more closely in how you can take advantage of the opportunities that are out there for you. Again at six one two five zero four eight four zero zero, you're listening to the Haven Financial Group Radio Show.

get us on the get on the calendar. There's no cost associated with and we'll have good conversation, a good cup of coffee, as we always joke, and fresh cookies as well. Here in the holidays. I mean, who would want to pass that up?

happen nearly as often as we like to. So we're going to eat it up as much as possible.

approach the end of the year. We're talking about that today on the show, and we well, we want to talk a little bit about contributions now, Larry, you have said that this is the time of year that you really need to check to see if you're maximized and start thinking about what kind of contributions you plan to make in twenty twenty five.

your retirement plan. Making sure that you're contributing as much as possible outside of an employer sponsored plan came like a four to one K four h three B deferred comp You can contribute up to seventy five hundred dollars if you're over the age of fifty. That is for IRA and ROTH. IRA IRA of course pre tax money, ROTH being after tax money going into this type of account. Make sure you understand which one is more beneficial or

maybe both for tax planning. I find that very important for those listeners that have employer plans take advantage of that. The threshold or the income thresholds are all the way up. If you're in the catchup age to thirty thousand dollars a year, well you take thirty thousand compounded for ten twenty thirty years. You have a retirement nest egg which you're going to need in retirement. Some of you listening may well, somebody told me I can't do income make

too much money, So maybe that doesn't make sense. I can't contribute and get the tax advantage of WROTH. Maybe entertaining a backdoor WROTH is a discussion. For some it's a very good discussion. Others it's not applicable. But that's

why retirement is not a one glove fits all. It's an individual conversation or a family conversation to find out what makes the most sense at what age the timing of life becomes that much more important, and these rules change, so hopefully whoever you're working with is informing you of these changes. And again back to taxes. Tax planning should

happen throughout the entire year. Preparation just happens the first part of the year when you do your tax preparation, and there should be no tax surprises because the planning should lead to very successful tax preparation. And from any it's the same argument every year, Oh my goodness, I owe so much money or this or that, and how about you solve the problem so we don't have that next year.

very different. Maybe you're going to continue to work, Maybe the spouse, if you're married, is going to Where is the income going to come from? What's the tax classification.

Pretty much all retire firemen and income is driven by the tax situation, and I want to point on one that kind of gets overlooked sometimes here at the end of the year, if you have the opportunity to max out that health savings account, that HSA account, please do as mentioned before, I think that we think that is more valuable, can be more valuable than that roth iray, because first of all, you're gonna want as much money

in there when you retire as possible. It goes in tax free, it comes out tax free for qualified medical expenses maybe maybe Medicare premiums. So max that hsiaout as much as you can every single year. Again, it starts with the conversation piece to find out what areas can you improve on, if at all and if so, implement these processes is which is where we are fully involved

in the implementation. It's part of our process as getting to know you and understanding you, the discovery process, coming up with some strategies and recommendations that we'll talk through see if they make sense. Why they make sense, I think it under it's an important to have an understanding and awareness of why you do something, and then we help people implement those strategies if they see fit, and then don't just put them on the shelf monitor it,

have continued conversation. Life happens quickly, and that is really our process. We take every person that comes in our door through that process and we help fit people in various ways. They don't everything doesn't need to be under the same roof. But you've heard me say retirement puzzle pieces should be coordinating, they should be working together, and so often they're working in different directions, which is not maximizing the potential.

At Haven Financial Group, our deadline and with Charles Schwabin Fidelity Investments, which the investment team and we manage with our kind of drop dead deadline is after the pretty much December seventh, just because so many people wait to the end of the year and there's a good chance it's not going to get done and then you'll be

upset and disappointed. Whoever, don't set yourself up for failure, set yourself up for success throughout the course of the year, and avoid those annual mistakes that you've made for the last five years. Let's just stop doing that.

to have as much fun with it. If you come on in. My wife loves to decorate the Christmas trees. We're gonna have a holiday client open house coming up mid December. So as serious as these timelines are, we're gonna have fun with it because you know, you know what, we've worked all year. Why not have a little fun with a serious topic.

tax discussions with our investment team and myself. The timeline fourth quarter we've been talking about roth conversions to make sure we don't miss that timeline, which is the end of the year, or let's just say the first week half of December, to make sure that we don't look back and say, wow, we did not fill that twelve percent bracket up, and we should have because these tax laws unless the new administration extends them, which there is

a good chance that that might happen. But we have to plan for the rules as they are right now, which is the end of next year. Take advantage of those opportunities. If it has anything to do with you, I will say we've talked about the contributions and the importance of those making sure you get as much tax benefits to reduce your taxable income in the given year. The timeline of those required minimum distributions so is really

the first big of December. We set up most of our clients with automated so they don't have to worry about that. But if you forget or didn't know, it falls on you the account holder, which there could be a used to be a fifty percent penalty, now it's still a halfty twenty five percent penalty if you don't take it. Yes, you can ask for mercy or grace from the IRS, and anybody that's tried to do that probably didn't have a lot of fun. We've helped to

some success do that. But how about we just adhere to the timelines, get it done, and hey, it's the end of the year. If you're a charitable person, now you don't give charitably for tax reasons, but we have clients that are very charitable. Maybe you don't need of the R and D s and those iras qualified charitable distributions can be very very beneficial to you and the

recipient donor advice funds. Maybe you had a big income year, take advantage a nice big hit to your taxes by doing a donor advice fund and so take a big chunk of that to give to charities you know at some point, but you can take the big hit this year. So really talking through these things, seeing what you can do if anything met max out of that. AHS say, do whatever you can to minimize your taxes and take advantage of maxing out these twelve percent for sure, the

twelve percent brackets. Making sure that if you're over the estate tax, which most people aren't federally IN'SO. The state level Minnesota, of course, is three million, so make sure. I just had a client in from rose Mount. They didn't have any estate planning done. She they were married for years. She had no idea the size of the estate that her and her late husband had put together. There was a huge estate tax issue that could have been avoided or minimized to a large degree, and it's

going to cost their estate several millions of dollars. Again, I'm not making this sound like it. This is only applicable to those that are very wealthy. It's for anybody that has a little bit to a lot or anything in between. See what's applicable to you, what's not, and get the benefits out of whatever planning you should be doing.

much money back two years ago because of the look back. Now, there are things you can do, and Glennon is Abel to do a great job. It's called the IRMA release. We help people fill that out and go to back to get those premiums reduced. And a lot of people when they plan for retirement, they just don't factor in how expensive healthcare and Medicare, premiums and all that can be. So don't be the one that gets you just complacent

with what the plan you have this year. Shop it out every year to make sure you're at the right place at the right time. Because that why we've been so busy this year is there's been a lot of Medicare changes many people are not aware of, but they will become aware of it come the first of the year if they didn't make the proper adjustments. Life is full of life and retirement are full of adjustments. The problem is most people don't do the adjusting until something negative happens, or.

and three quarter plus percent mortgage rates. And I've found that there are some of these folks that are looking to downsize or one level living or kind of house locked because house prices are so stinking expensive still and the rates being higher, and they can't find a place to replace the one they've been in for thirty forty

or years, so they're just kind of stuck. But don't forget about real estate and maybe some future plans to move closer to those grandkids, which I see often what made you move here to Minnesota from Florida or vice versa, the kids and the grandkids. So I hear it so often and I get it. But again, real estate should also be part of the planning process.

they would be happy to do so. If you don't have one, now's the time to get started. Six one two five zero four eight four zero zero. It will cost you nothing set up that free consultation. And if you're interested in attending one of those teaching seminars, and there are a number of them, on varied topics. You don't have to be a client and they are free. They would just like for you to sign up. You can learn more about those at Havenfinancialgroup dot com.

Four December thirty first rolls around. When we come back, we're going to talk about estate planning and how important it is to start looking ahead when it comes to planning your state, and what Haven Financial Group can do to help you. In the meantime, we'll take a break and when we come back, we'll talk more about a state planning. Right here on the Haven Financial Group Radio Show, don't.

Whatever it is, let us know, we'd love to assist you in any way possible. This one, Kim is state planning. I and several of the staff have years of experience in this area. Our estate planning attorneys though, are Kim, Anna and Keith, and this one is very important and there's lots of misconceptions.

It could not be further from the truth. Now, not everybody is really going to necessarily need the same thing. I will tell you there's certain documents that everybody should have to some degree, having a legal will, maybe looking at a revocable trust, maybe looking at a transfer on death deed, documents that one should have whether you're single or married, health care directives, durable powers of attorney for financial medical records, healthcare. One must understand that we live

in a very litigious society. There's no automatics for anything. There really isn't. And I know there might be some listeners listing that our husband and wife or life partners. And you say you've been making decisions for your spouse for forty to fifty years and if something happens, I'll still be able to make those decisions. That is simply not true. There are no automatics today. Again having the right legal documents, and that really starts with a no

cost consultation. If it's with us to really talk through those things. This conversation will be with one of the estate planning attorneys. There is no cost for an initial consultation. If there's documents to be done. Like any other areas of retirement, there's one hundred percent full transparency. What would that cost be, what would it entail, what does it look like? The attorneys are very educational, just like we

are in all of these areas. And if you've been putting it off, I just this last week had a couple in four they've had four kids that are adults, and they said, I go, you've never had a will in your life. Nope, but we've been talking about it for forty years or others that did it when their kids were minors for guardianship conservatorship, which is another reason you should do it. And now those kids are thirty and their old will says they got to go live

with their uncle or something happens. They're adults and they have their own kids. And I'll tell you this, what's pretty neat about Kim and the estate planning. Ataria Sheild is the principal of the law firm. Is every year around graduation time, she'll run a special for those kids that are graduating that turn eighteen years old, because now

they're an adult. There's certain documentation that should be that should be done to protect the interest of those kids or to protect the interest of the parents if something happens. So who at eighteen is thinking about doing this? Not many, including me when I was eighteen, and that wasn't yesterday.

Now there's different probate rules in different states. Many would say they want to avoid probate. Well, there's no automatic to doing that. Then it may take certain documentation, a transfer on death deed oftentimes for a property. But talk through those, our attorneys talk through those. Because if you have more than one kid and then they're married, well then do they all have to agree? Will that happen?

Oftentimes people work so hard during their life to do put together whatever they put together, money, investments, jewelry, vehicle collections, and they don't really pay attention to what happens if they're not here to make these decisions, and that can I've seen it break families. I've seen legacy that was intended to go one way go a different way just

because nothing was done. I mean, I'd have a a shout out to one of my clients who came in this past week and I was had a client that were just leaving Michael who was in visiting with one of the attorneys. Recently, his wife went into a nursing home about a month ago. He brought in a bill for thirteen grand. They had done no estate planning. Kim and I came in. I just came out, I said, Michael House, Kathleen doing he goes not good. She passed away now not never a good thing, but number one,

she's not in pain anymore, and she's at peace. But he was left not knowing what to do. Now, I'm not blaming anybody. It's not anybody's fault, but it's those situations you don't want to find yourself in not being able to speak. Powers of attorney are necessary, and I'm all about doing yourself if you're capable, But I am very very cautious that when we hear you know somebody so, well, I'm going to do all my legal documents by myself. Well do you have a legal degree. We're in a

litigious society. If it doesn't work, you're in trouble. And there's certain legal ease that needs to be in these documents. Nothing is free, don't pay too much, but make sure you're getting what's necessary. Again, whether it's wealth, you're trying to transfer, whether it's personal property, whether it's just simply making decisions. The more information Again, this upcoming year we're going to be giving out to our clients that they'll be able to give to their kids. And I think

it's really cool. It's a haven what Next, big binder, What Next and documentation for those kids or grandkids or even if it's nieces and nephews, whoever is going to benefit our information the better. And so our clients are going to get that what Next book, so when they are gone, there's going to be clearly outlined on what happens next and how we can help them do it.

So if you're listening right now and you think, well, I've already taken care of my estate planning I already have a will. Well, have things changed in your life since you wrote that will? Maybe you've got kids who have gotten married, or you've got kids who've gotten divorced.

can be the difference between transferring generational wealth. It can be the difference of just causing strife in the family and not strife. Unfortunately, I've seen it break up relationships and siblings. Again, the greed factor in human beings is very high. And this is the statement I've heard over the years many times. Oh, our kids would never fight, or our family never has any problems. I hope no

families have any problems. But then why have I heard hundreds and hundreds of families that had problems even though they said there wouldn't be any. See, when you're not here or you're not able to speak, and somebody is able to speak for you even though you're not able, that doesn't always go the way people want it to. I don't care how great of kids you have or how great of families. We want to do the best to dotterize and cross the t's and control what you

can control. And that as much as we put into the estate planning documents, it feels.

they're retired. Parents haven't got it done. So if there's kids listing and your parents have done, don't have it done. You do it for as much for each other, if you're married, as you do the family. You don't want those headaches that mom and dad are hoping are not headaches. You want them to dot the rize and cross the t's as much you need to get as much as you need to get your own stuff done.