Let's Talk Money

Per is wrong. I don't want to be right. Well, this is a nice song, ye zach. Good morning everybody, and welcome to let's talk money. I am Stephen Bouchet. I'm sitting here live. I thank you for tuning in on this day. Man, February is flying by. Spring will be here before we know it. That's a beautiful thing. Stock market's doing good year to date. I can't thank you enough for taking time out of your day every Saturday at ten, every Sunday at eight to tune

in. It really means a lot to me, and I try my best to give you what you're looking for. And that's really a good show, my honest opinions. Any questions that you have pertaining to your financial futurelks. You get one opportunity to retire. I keep reminding you of that, because it's true. You can't go back and make up for all those decades of working. You can't save money in the last few years. When all of a sudden you want to retire and you realize, man, I should have

been saving money for the last ten, twenty thirty forty years. You can't do it in two three, four years. Not enough anyway. So if you have any questions to your financial future, give me a call. Whatever it may be. Maybe you're not sure if your current advisor really is advising you're right, if you're doing it on your own. Maybe you have some questions. Maybe somebody's trying to say you an annuity, telling you it's like a no load mutual fund, no fees. You need to give me a

call, any questions whatsoever. One eight hundred talk WGY one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Give me a call. I'd love to talk to you today. Eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine February seventeenth, Zach, I mean, how did that happen? Tell me, Zach, I don't know, but it is flying by. We're already a month and a half into the year. Yeah, really really, and you know, once March first comes, you know, it's like spring is in

the air. People are really all excited and it's going to be here before we know it. And it's kind of been a mild winter, so you know, this is this is good. You know, it's really good. So folks, we we we we had an interesting week in the market. I'm just trying to figure out how many days till spring. I should have had it up thirty one days. Thirty one days, I guess, and spring will will, we'll be here. So that's that's pretty good. One

eight h eight two five five to nine four line. I kind of got a little waylaid there, you know, for for for the week, folks. You know, the week began with you know, artificial intelligence AI. If you haven't used it, play around with it. It's it's really interesting all that AI can do. I think AI is real. I think it's here, it's not going away, and the sooner you embrace it and understand it. Listen, there may be a day when Google isn't where we go

to right now. What do we always say, Hey, I'll just Google that and get the information. Well, the new way is artificial intelligence AI. So we began in the week Navidia, which is the number one company really for for artificial intelligence, passing Amazon and market cap armholdings rising sixty seven percent before retreating. Coin broke fifty thousand this week. The UK Japan slipped into a recession. January CPI came in at three point one percent, missing

expectations of two point nine percent. Core CPI unchanged at three point nine percent. Stocks really plunged on that news on Tuesday and then they rallied. You know, for the week. The DILL was was was off about point one one percent, the SMP off point four to two percent, NASDAK off one point three four percent. So that's how the week fared. We kind of started off good. Tuesday was really the day that dragged everything down. One eight hundred eight, two, five, five, nine, four nine are

our phone numbers today. If you have any questions, give me a call, Zach. Let me take Marie in Loudonville. Hello, Murray, Hi, how are you good? How are you calling to ask about roth iras and converting an ira to a roth ira and when it is appropriate to do so that you know at what age? And how do you feel about that? Yes, I have a substantial amount of money in iras as well as roth IRA's, but it's a good to convert every year. So that's a

great question. I have right now five CPAs on my team and two two I R s Nroll tax agents. We spend a lot of time with this, and to be honest, it's different all the time, Marie, it really it's it's different. First and foremost, will you have higher taxes in retirement? And if so, you know it may behove you to start converting some more or that traditional let's say retirement dollars I ray into a wrath. You also want to look at, you know, are you in a low

tax rate this year? If you're in a low tax rate, you know it's not that painful. Yeah, all right, but I mean if you were, that's one thing that to look at. How long before retirement? Obviously the longer your money has to grow tax free in a roth ira. And that's the beauty of a roth ira. Maria. Anybody who's listened to this show knows that for decades I've been saying roth IRA's are the best, the best loophole that the IRS has given us. And anybody who can put

money into a roth ira absolutely should be putting money into it. So those are the things to give some thought to as as you know, you already have it. But there's no required minimum distributions. That's a beautiful thing. Roth IRA's from an estate planning and if it can can be effective, hairs inherit wroth iras tax free, which can be a significant advantage if you have money you're leaving tax diversification. Having funds in both traditional and WROTH accounts allows

for greater flexibility when you do reach retirement. So with all of that being said, it really depends on your personal situation if you do convert from a traditional IRA to a wroth IRA. And the IRS loves to have people do that, Marie, because they get their tax dollars right up front, rather than having it be put off until you know, require minimum distributions are seventy

three years old. So when you convert that money that you convert, if you convert ten thousand dollars, that ten thousand dollars gets added on to your income tax. So you're going to pay tax on ten thousand dollars. So if you convert, make sure you pay attention to it not pushing you into a higher marginal tax bracket. And if you can do that, and you can, you've got the wherewithal to pay the taxes. I always say, when you do convert, don't take more money out to pay the taxes.

If you have money on the side that you can pay the taxes, that's when it really behooves you. So everybody's different. It's not a straightforward answer. As I said, I have a lot of tax horsepower, let's say, on my team, and we have a lot of clients that often ask should I, shouldn't I? And it really comes down to an individual situation. That's a very point. It's hard to know. It's hard to know what the future holds where you'll be as far as a tax bracket. But

I just like, I like your point about time. So I have twenty years until I retire. That's twenty years that will grow. I convert it, but we're in a higher tax bracket right now, so it will be paying a lot in taxes. I'm just thinking like five or ten thousand a year to convert or just yeah, but ross, I mean so say that, oh, your husband does puts into the four one k ross, So I know we're not getting a lot of tax benefits from the traditional four one

k pre tax, you know savings. Yeah, then we're we're paying a probably a lot now. But I told them, in you know, twenty years and we retire, that money is going to be growing, growing, growing, and all without without having pay any taxes on it. Then exactly do you have children, Marie? Yes, two, yep, yep, And so there's a lot of pros to to the wroth side, but if your husband's already doing it on the four oh one K, you may want to really second guess whether or not you want to do more on the IRA.

If you can have a bounce, a nice mix. And I don't know what that mix is because I don't know enough about your tax scenario, but if you can have a mix of money that will be taxable and money that will be tax free and retirement, that's really where you're hitting the sweet spot. I mean, that's when it really works for you. M Okay, that's good. That's good. That's some good advice there. And we also, like I put a lot into the HSA, and I didn't know

I could invest that side. We've been growing, growing or HSA money. Instead, I'm spending it every year. We just spend cool And it's great because I put that money to a CD. I know it's it's very conservative, but that way, I know I'm not risking HSA funds on a you know, on some type of stock that we're going to you know, plug power something that's not doing so well, or just throwing out an ideas.

But yeah, I'm doing CDs, and that money is growing tax free, so it's pre tax you know, no tax upfront, no taxes when we pull that money out someday and it's growing tax free and then we do it. I do a lot to define for children, so I try to do tax free investments as much as I can with an IRS guideline. That I mean, that's great. Can I be your Devil's advocate? Absolutely? I'd love to hear that. All right. So I heard you say you have

twenty years, so I'm guessing you're in your forties. Am I correct? Can you repeat that? Yeah? I heard you say twenty years till retirement, so I'm guessing you're in your forties. So with that being said, I'm a little older than you. I'm not going to tell you how much, but I have all my money invested in the stock market even when and believe me, I have eight seven certified financial planners soon to be eight on

my team and we do a lot of financial planning for folks. And I've been a CFP of Certified Financial Planner since nineteen ninety, thirty four years that i've been in business, I've been at CFP and I know that everybody's supposed to have emergency funds. My emergency fund was always invested in the stock market because I never you know, I always I always felt that the chances of me needing that are slim, and why should I earn three, four or

five percent on my money having it safe. I'd rather have it in the stock market, and I'd have that much more money to fall back on. Now, this is just my personal outlook, but I'm okay to share it with younger people like you and your husband. So with the HSAS, the same thing goes, more than likely you're not going to use that HSA for a while. So having it be that conservative over the years, maybe just

maybe you want to be just a little bit more growth oriented. As long as you understand, maybe something happens where you need that HSA and you get a year like twenty twenty two where the s is down twenty percent, then you know that you're going to have less money. But if you don't need that money for five years, ten years, and that money grows in the stock market, you know, the annual rate of return is ten percent in

the stock market, bonds over time four or five percent. So if you can have that much more money then it could pay off, but there's risk that comes with that, so I'm not so sure. If you were my

client, I'd have one hundred percent of that money in something safe. But I understand it, and it allows you to sleep well at night because that money is there in case you have some you know, you know, basically for people that don't know what an HSA is, it's a health savings account And basically, you know, Marie and other people that have hsas can use it for medical expenses and they get tax advantages for putting money in. And the beauty is Marie is pointing out, is she can invest that money.

It's it's it's win win all around. So that's you know, that's that's just my two cents worth. Hold on, Marae. I got to let the puppy out. My wife said, we're never going to get another puppy. She wanted to go to a shelter and get a dog a couple of years old, so that you know, the dog was trained and everything. She went to the shelter fifteen times, couldn't find a dog. She tried hard. We ended up getting a puppy. We have a four month old puppy. So when he comes into my office with me, oh yeah,

yeah. But he's a good puppy. You know, he sleeps through the night, and he's cute as a button. He's a very social dog. It's a little King Charles Cavalier. So he's really a good puppy. Yeah, a lot of fun. So anyway, I apologize for being distracted. Oh well, you know they have been shun they have all kinds of insurances for animals. I'm finding out. Yes, that is true, but bad

to say. And I do respect your what you said about that. And so we put that into like a five percent CD And I hear you said about bonds at four percent, stock market ten percent, But I I just know it's a long term historical those are long term historical rates or returns. Maybe I'll take like it's only twenty five grand in that HSA right now, because government only gives us like seven seventy three hundred dollars a year for a

family to put in. And I used to cash it out every year, cash it out, cash it out if I could, if we had the receipts. I don't mean, I mean with the FSA, we had to cash it out every year. Use it. Thank you that use it every year. So then a couple of years ago, when the DHSA was offered, I've just been building and building that money. But at first I was using it for like copays and different medical expenses. But a friend of mine said, no, just keep it in there, let it grow, invest

it, and I have we don't have a lot of medical expenses. Knock on the wood, so I don't touch it. I use cash or cash for paying off any medical copays and such. So I will I will look into maybe investing some of the AHSA money out the twenty five grand we have, maybe you know, ten of it into like a target retirement fund or something. No fun target retirement funds. Hate them, you did, I

shouldn't use the word hate. I should be a little you know. My team tells me, Steve, you shouldn't say that a lot of people like target date funds. I said, I know, but they too, learn into my radio show so that I can be honest with them. Target date funds are nothing other than because each company, there's no rhyme or reason each company is different. There's no two companies that are the same. So if

you buy a twenty thirty retirement fund. That means that you plan on retiring at twenty thirty, and as you approach twenty thirty, that fund gets more conservative. Now, if you buy it, it's more aggressive. It's going to retirement fun target date fund. That means it's more aggressive. It's going

to be a whole long time before you reach that target date. Well, listen, if you retire at age sixty five and you in the year twenty thirty, I'm still planning another twenty five years that you're going to be hanging around with us. That's a long time. So I don't want my client's money getting more conservative. Most of our retirementes are sixty forty. I'd rather see you buy a lifestyle fund. If you want to be growth oriented,

you can get a seventy five, twenty five, and eighty twenty. If you want to be a little bit more balanced, sixty forty fifty fifty. So lifestyle fun I agree with, And I also agree with like a like the Totallest Talk Market Index fund from Vanguard. I like that one, for example, But can't you just up your retirement date some in sort of thing? Oh yeah, that's still twenty and the other. The other reason is the other reason is there chuck full of international investments. We don't own one

international investment, not one. If you look over the last fifteen years, your average return and the S and P is close to fifteen percent. Your average return for international investments is more like five six percent. Hey, Marie, you get some great questions. You are so smart to say that I didn't think about the international aspect of the target retirement fund. You what do you think I've been doing radio for twenty nine years. No, I do.

May I'm my own financial advisor, and I was. You know, I'm doing the best I can, but I'm not. You know, I always want to if I'd be making more money. I'm glad I was able to teach you something, Marie. Be well, stay healthy, great questions, Keep up the discipline for saving. What a great call, Marie was just good, good questions. I guess I'm not just a pretty taste for radio. Zach one eight hundred eighty two five five nine is the phone number.

Let's go back to the phone lines we have Ron in Queensberry. Hello, Ron, Hi Steve, how are you? I'm doing wonderful A month I spoke to you about a month and a half ago, and the situation was regarding I have a twenty three year old daughter with seventeen and a half thousand in a roth Ira and we had added in Schwab just cash because we didn't know what to do with it. And then I called you and right there was no hesitation. You recommended the sending it into the Schwab Intelligent Portfolio.

And so what happened is we decided my daughter has no knowledge of the stock market at all, so you know, to her, she is, I don't want to lose any money. I don't want to lose any money. So what ended up happening is we went into the Schwab, we transferred it over, we created the roth to the Intelligent portfolio, and when she

was answering risk questions, it turned out to be a three rating. So whatever we I said to her, you know, I think you should go four or five because I think you have three so tiger, and she ended up saying, no, no, I'm comfortable with the three. So she ended up putting it into three. And I'm still having second doubts about it. So last week I thought you were wrong. I supposed to your son and your son said no, no, her age group, it should be

longer, and I know you said everything should be in stock. So we ended up going in and we were going through and one question was would you feel comfortable either making seven thousand dollars a year or losing seven thousand dollars a year? And so she ended up doing the four rather than the five. So it turns out that the change in the portfolio was kind of crazy because it ended up being like fifty seven percent stocks, like forty three percent or

forty two percent of the fixed income and then the rest in care. And so before I approach her back again and say listen, I think we should change it because I think on this one we have no idea how to navigate their site because they only give you five choices. So would you would you like suggest that she goes somehow brother goes more into because now it's like close to sixty forty. But she's only twenty three. So what's a gentle way

of explaining to her that she's not thinking correctly? Tell her tomorrow morning, set her alarm early. If she's twenty three, she may be out tonight. Say listen, I want you to call a friend of mine, Steve. It's just a phone call. We won't tell her she's going to be on the radio and a million listeners listening to her. And I'll give it to her straight, you know, as straight as I can give it to her. You know, that's really you know, I can't begin to tell

you that's what you want to do. And I'd be happy to do that with her. Kind of trick her in the call and make tomorrow morning I will do that. She may not take your advice, but at least that she'll get it from from the expert, because I mean, I'm thanking you very much for making that suggestion, because I think we didn't even know about that until I call you. And so at least, at least I'm happy she got it over fifty percent in the stock market. I got to look

at the positive side of this thing. But she's not getting it, you know, you know, she just doesn't quite quite understanding. She's in the unique position where at twenty three she has seventeen and f thousand and the warth ira, you know, and that's just from part time jobs and stuff like that. So you know, I will, hopefully if you get a call from her, you know it's successful in waking her up. Oh, I'm

gonna have to figure out otherwise. I'm going to have to still figure out how in the world to be able to get her because I'm not happy with that fifty fifty seven percent in the stock market. She's one thing, she's young. She she can take risk. She can make up and it's not if it's when the market goes down the next time, she can make up for that. But yeah, tell her to call me, Tell her to have all of her friends tune in, and she's gonna be I'll make her

a rock star on the radio. Tell her she doesn't have to do her nails or or hair because it's radio. But have her call me. She'll have fun. Hey, ron, I gotta I gotta get ready to go for the news. Thank you for the call. I'm glad I was able to help you. That's what I'm here, folks. I've been doing a radio for twenty nine years. That's a long time. You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchet and Answer Group where we help our

clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life. If you have any questions one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. The phone lines are open. One eight hundred eight two forty nine. I'll see you right after the news if it's wrong. Even in a mellow mood today, I like it. Zach, folks, thanks for hanging in through the news. Thank you for tuning in. You know, I have to update the spot. I actually brought in a fifth CPA for the tax season to help

our clients, and he's also an i RS and rolled agent. I think I have more CPAs and a lot of CPA firms, something I'm very proud of. We do a lot of tax planning for our clients. There's not a there's really not a question that our clients can't ask us that we don't have the expertise to be able to answer. And that's important. Clients, you know, they're putting all their trust and faith in our ability to manage their wealth, and we're really proud of it. And if you have any

questions, give me a call. One eight hundred talk WGY one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. One eight hundred eighty two five fifty nine forty nine. So you know, we had a couple good callers in the first half of the half of the show. And you know, going back to the Target retirement fund, you know that that that Vanguard Target twenty fifty. When you think about it, the fifteen year return on that is

about eleven percent a year, year in, year out. If you had your money in the S and P five hundred fifteen percent, folks, four percent a year is a lot of money that really over fifteen years. It's night and day. The difference and the reason why I don't like target day funds and I shouldn't pooh pooh them. I'll probably have some of my colleagues say, Steve, you shouldn't pooh pull them. I just don't like them. I don't you know one. You know, So twenty fifty is a

pretty aggressive fund. Ten percent of it is in bonds, thirty five percent of it is in international holdings, and that's too much for me. We don't have any international holdings none, whatsoever. I don't care to own anything outside of this great country of ours. Our returns are pretty stellar focusing exclusively just on the USA, and I'm just I'm not a fan. And I

can give you reasons why maybe we should diversify outside the USA. But when you know, as I said, over the last fifteen years, the average return in the SMP year in year out fifteen percent a year. The rest of the world take this great country of ours out the rest of the world about seven percent. So I just don't have any any any desire whatsoever. And Ryan is heading up our investment team, my son, who was on last weekend, and you know, he he agrees with me. Not now.

There may be a time. I'm not going to say never, but you know, I basically I've given you know, I coach my team. Listen, I have nineteen professionals that I'm surrounded by, and I coach each and every one of them, everyone from those that have been with me the longest of those who have been with me the shortest, I've coached them. I've mentored them, I've been grained in them the way I think, and I'm very proud of the way I think when it comes to working with clients

and managing money, so so it you know, it works. I'm just not a fan of international investments. And you know, we also talked about HSA's health savings accounts, and it's really a beautiful thing, and it's okay. You know, listen, if if, if, if you're a little bit more conservative, at least you're putting money in. It's going to be there for a rainy day if you need for medical expenses, so you don't need to get the gusto for it. There's a lot of risk that comes

with being aggressive. I'm comfortable with it because I know when it's not it, when that market goes down again, I don't care. I don't look. I really don't look at my personal holdings. I you know, I got to Ryan and the investment team are doing a great job. I know what's in it because I'm invested just like my clients. I don't need to look at the balance. I'm human, just like everybody else is. If I look and I'm down five fifteen percent, twenty percent, it's going to

bother me. So I don't look. Then it doesn't bother me because I know one thing. Every stock market has come back and gone on to make new all time highs. That's what you have to remember. So with the hsas, and you know, you can put almost four thousand dollars away for individuals, almost eight thousand dollars away for families, and if you're fifty five year older, you can do another one thousand dollars. You get a tax break, you get to have that money be invested. They're beautiful things.

There are so many beautiful things you can do from a money standpoint. That's why the show is Let's Talk money. One eight hundred eighty two, five five to nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine forty nine. Any questions whatsoever, give me a call, folks. I would love to talk to you, you know, love to talk to you. Monday, you know, sleep in. Don't worry about looking at your your stock market returns for the day. Some of you do. I know you're

you're you're on every every hour looking at it. Some people are on every five minutes looking at it. You know, give yourself a break. Monday, it's a holiday. The stock and bond markets are closed for a observance of President's Day. So it's a beautiful thing. On Wednesday, we're going to have the Federal Open Market Committee releases its many minis minutes from its January

I think they met January thirtieth and thirty first. From that meeting, we'll hear what they had to say, whoever the secretary is that took the notes, it's going to be released. So at that meeting, we know that the FED left the FED funds rate unchanged. So right now we're at a five point twenty five to five point five spread. The Central Bank pencilvan three twenty five basis point cuts this year. But remember it's a moving target. It is not going to happen the way they played out. And I hate

to pick on the FED. We know they were wrong a few years ago. They missed inflation completely. We know they miscommunicated to the world. We know they had bad four and you know, I can't blame them. They're listen, they're bright people, but they have their noses stuck in the textbook. They think they're still in college, and they think that in order to bring inflation from nine percent down to three percent like they did, that they

needed to drive us into a deep, dark recession. We needed millions and millions of people to be laid off. Guess what they learned that they could bring inflation from nine to three percent like they did, and the economy is pretty resilient and people are working, and that's a beautiful thing. So you can't take the FED for its word all the time. It's a moving target.

They're sometimes too dependent on data. They're looking at data every which way, and sometimes they just got to take their head out of the sand and look around and realize that. Listen, they missed inflation being a problem a few years ago. They could have been ahead of the game, proactive, not reactive, but they had no clue because they were out of touch with reality. I keep saying, they don't go and fill up their own cars with gas. They would have saw that gas went from being in the two

dollars range to three four dollars range. They don't shop for their groceries. They would have realized they were spending an extra fifty seventy five one hundred dollars a week extra for that. They weren't paying their utility bills. So they were out of touch with reality. And you know, I hate to pick on them, but it's the truth. They've admitted to it, so I'm just confirming what they've admitted to. So, you know, they thought there might be three cuts this year, I don't know. You know, the

chances of a cut in March was pretty good. That's off the table. I think. We had the CPI report come out on Tuesday. Inflation is a little bit stronger than expected. So I don't think you're going to see a cut in March, but who knows. Maybe, you know, maybe we'll get a cut in May or June. I don't know. Nobody knows, Nobody knows what the Fed is thinking. They're looking at the data. If the data is favorable, maybe we'll get some cuts. If we get

some cuts, that's going to be good news for the stock market. I know we're probably I can almost assure you now I said almost, so you can't say Steve guaranteed me. I can almost assure you. The next move will be a cut. I'm pretty sure they'll keep rates steady for a long time, but the next move will be a cut. And I don't know if that'll be March, May, June, July, August. I don't know when that will be. But I'm guessing the next move will be a

cut. In the meantime, rates are steady, and that's not a bad thing. Steady, Eddie, you know, rates are steady. The dock market likes that is proven. You know, here we are. Year to date, the SMP is up five percent. Nasdaq is up five percent. Nothing wrong with that. It's only February seventeen. I mean, we're halfway through a month and a half into a twelve month year and the markets are

up five percent, not a bad start. You have the ten year US treasury yield at about four point three percent, and that's not bad either. It was five percent in October, so it went all the way down to the three and a half percent range. So we're creeping back up. We're

four point three percent. Nothing wrong with that either. You have For those those crypto people out there, Bitcoin is right now as I sit here, fifty fifty one one thousand dollars over fifty one thousand dollars, and you know, there's a lot going And that ten year Treasury note, you know, yielding, you know, just about four point three percent. You know, the one year is almost five percent, the six month is five point three

percent. Short term is still higher than long term. Mortgage rates are up. Mortgage rates don't seem to be coming down anytime too soon, which is is too bad. And there you have it. So everything will pass, Everything will pass. One eight hundred eighty two five five nine four nine one eight hundred eighty two, five fifty nine, forty nine. So you know, the big news this week was the consumer prices in January came in above expectations. Inflation, you know, ease, but came in above what Wall

Street was expecting. The Labor Department reported on Tuesday that consumer prices rose about three point one percent in January from a year earlier. Is a December gain of three point four percent. So that marked the lowest reading since June, and the CPI higher than the two point nine percent, So we came into three point one we were expecting two point nine. That was disappointing to investors because if we came in at two point nine or lower, then there was

hope that the Fed would cut rates sooner than later. Right now, I think rates are on pause rate cuts. You know, they listen. When the Fed starts cutting rates, the stock market's going to be a great place to have your money invested. So I always say the stocks are up seventy percent of the time. Seventy percent of the time. If you look over the last forty four years, stocks were positive thirty four of those forty four years. So stocks are up more than they're down, and long term investors

they can't get. They can't get, you know, scared out of the market because of the headlines, whether it be the headline of the day, the headline of the week, the headline of the month. Don't let the headlines bother you have a well diversified portfolio, hang in there, and any money that you need over the next twelve to twenty four months. Right now is a good time with markets near they're all time highs, all time highs. I'm not talking just highs in the last you know, a few months.

I'm talking all time highs. Now is the time when you want to liquidate those funds that you may need over the next twelve to twenty four months. We do that for our clients. We start out with about twenty four months two years worth of cash needs. We let it drift down before we replenish it. Right now we're going to be replenishing it again because markets are at all time highs. And if you need money over the next twelve to twenty four months, if you take it out this way, if we have

another correction this year or next year, it won't bother you. The money you need that you need to be guaranteed to be there for you. You've taken it out. So the CPI came in a little hotter than expected. And you know, we had the the markets on Tuesday. Want good for the week. You know, if you look at the SMP, the S and P was down just about a half a percent. NASDAK was down a little worse, down one point three four. NAZDAC one hundred, which is

QQQ was down about one point five percent, and that's expected. That's expected when interest rates go up, those growth companies get hit more one eight hundred eighty five fifty nine forty nine. Any questions, give me a call. Let's go back to the phone lines. We have Joe and Walta. Hello Joe, Good morning Steve. How are you, sir? I'm doing wonderful. How about you? I'm hoping for some advice from an expert. Oh man, oh man, you want me to who do you want me to

call? It's just like a lifeline. What was that TV show? Call your lifeline? Who do you want me to call? I listen to your show every weekend. I very much appreciate everything you do in your advice. And here's my question. If I want to keep investing, but I really don't want any current income. I don't want to pay any more tax than I'm already paying. And let's say, for the sake of the argument, I got a half a million dollars. What would you recommend? I would

call Steve Bouchet Tuesday morning. The office opens at eight. Why waste time, Joe, No, it's you know, if you've got time on your side, and you should call us if you've got that kind of money hanging around. But in all seriousness, Joe, if you get that kind of money around and you don't, I'm guessing it's a taxable account. We love ETFs, we love passive investing for tax efficiency. The internal fees are low.

I bring that up. Our core holding is point point zero three percent, The average mutual fund fee is one point one percent, and annuities are about three percent. As you know, I don't like annuities. So the a good well managed ETF portfolio, and there's some good tax managed ones out there if you're investing on your own, if your your own financial planner, like Marie was. Marie called us in the first half of the show.

She does her own thing, but I was able to teach her a thing or two, I guess after so I've been helping clients for thirty six years, thirty seven years, I guess after all that time, I've learned a

thing or two where I can still help people. But that's that's what you want to look at, Joe, And then you decide, you know, there's I can't tell you there won't be any dividends paid because there are the S and P yields about one point five percent right now, so you're gonna get a little bit dibbingend yield on that, but you're not going to have any big tax consequences. Like a mutual fund. Mutual funds, at the end of the year, they rebalance the money. Managers rebalance their portfolio,

and sometimes they create a tax nightmare for the investors. With the passive investment, you don't have to worry about that, and there's some really good ones. But in all seriousness, for the heck of it, you should give my office a call on Tuesday morning and say that you and I talked on Saturday. Let us really, you know, do a little bit more digging for you, and then you'll decide if if we're the type firm for you

or if you want to continue to do it on your own. Okay, fair enough, Thank you very much, Joe B. Well, stay healthy okay. One eight hundred talk wgy what eight hundred eight two, five, five, nine, four, nine great questions. Today It's really a good day, seventeenth A great day. One of my dear friends has a birthday today, Jimmy Casey. Jimmy, I know you listen, so happy birthday to you, Bud. Jimmy and I go back. I met Jimmy in second grade, so people who listen know that you know. My mom died

when I was ten. So I've been working since I was eleven. At my first job, and I believe in long term loyalty, I worked for how Young at Tony's Pizza and Spaghetti House up in North central Troy. Tony's Pizza and Spaghetti House. I worked there from before I was eleven till I was eighteen, and then I went and worked for Jimmy Casey's dad and at Casey's East, a very popular restaurant. I had some good times back then. I have the Casey family and the Young family were really they opened up

the world to me. I always say, I think one of the reasons I am the type person that I am is because of all that I learned from the Young and Casey family. Happy birthday, Jimmy eight two five four nine. Let's go back to the phone lines we have Jim and Schenectady. Hello, Jim, Hi, just a quick question, and I don't really hear you talk about this. I retired about a year and a half ago.

I'm sixty two right now. My financial advisor suggests that I hold off on my Social Security as long as possible because I have enough money, and I I I'll shut up and listen to me. I just wanted to know your feelings on that. Well, listen. Yeah, your financial advisor is giving you good advice. So the O rest assured you you got somebody that knows what they're talking about. When you take so to security at age sixty two, you are taking you're you're you're you're you're really taking a haircut.

The longer you leave it in there, the better off you'll you'll be, believe it or not. And if you wait till full retirement age, which you know you're sixty, so full retirement age is going to be sixty six, I think something like that for you. But if you take it at at at sixty two. You know, I think I think it's almost forty percent less that you're going to get over the full retirement age. And that's

that's a lot. That's a real lot. And the beauty is if you have a good, well diversified portfolio that can that can carry it through the years. If you wait between full retirement age and age seventy, you get an eight percent bump, an eight percent rate, and your benefits now by age seventy. You need to take it because if you don't, it's like giving the government money. I had a client, a doctor, brilliant man, and you know he may be listening and he'll know who I'm talking about.

I begged him to take his Social Security. He didn't take it till age seventy three because he was too busy. I said, you probably left about one hundred thousand dollars on the table that the government has and you can't go back, and they're not going to write you check pees. You needn't take it. So everybody listening, you need to take it by age seventy. But you get a big, big bump from full retirement age till age seventy and Jim at age sixty two, and congratulations being able to retire at

a young age at age sixty two. You know, if you don't need it, if you think you're going to live beyond let's say seventy five, you're better off to wait. There's different formulas. We do a lot of planning for clients where he right in on it. So ask your financial advisor to kind of give you a break even point. But I always say, if you're going to live past mid to late seventies, holding off on social security. I'm getting tongue tied. Holding off on social security is the way

for you to go. And God if you if you live to what the actual aerial tables say to you to the mid eighties and even into your nineties, absolutely holding off taking social security later works for you. And if you if your advisor's doing financial planning for you, you know he or she will be able to look at, you know, living off your investments and then having that social security replace some of that money down the road. So he is right or she is right giving you good advice. Jimmy, it sounds

as though you have an advisor that knows what they're talking about. Did I lose, Jim. I guess I lost, Jim two five five nine four nine, Sorry Jim. Good questions today, folks, really really really good, good questions. So you know, I was, I was talking about CPI and the consumer price Index being a little hotter. Because of that, it probably means that we're not going to have interest rates coming down sooner than

later. The Fed will probably pause because they're really fixated on making sure they get it right. They need to, and they'll they'll they'll wait till the time is right, and when they when they feel comfortable, they will they will truly start cutting rates. Because the reason why the Fed increases rates like they did over the last few years eleven times to be exact, is to slow down an economy that was getting out of hand. And we did have

an economy that was getting out of hand. We had an economy that was heating up. Inflation was nine point one percent at its peak, and it's come down to about three point one percent. So it's come down a great deal, and you know that's that's that's great, and then they'll cut interest rates to stabilize or i'm sorry, to stimulate the economy, and that'll be

the next move because the economy will get stagnant. You're listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouchef and Andrew, where we help our clients prioritize their health while we manage their wealth for life. Go to our website bouche dot com. Our stated the economy is up there and it is well worth the hour to watch. Thanks for listening.