Let's Talk Money

Good morning everyone, and what a beautiful morning it is. And I'm looking at the calendar today and I cannot believe it's June. That really snuck up on me. The kids are going to be out of school soon. For me, my kids are little, so they're at home, but my husband the teacher, so he'll be out of school soon. And for those of you listening here in the Capital region, you know that this is really one of the most beautiful times of the year here in this beautiful part of the

country. So I hope wherever you're listening from today, hopefully you're outside and enjoying from your front porch, working in the yard, or sitting by the pool today. And thank you for taking the time to join us for the next hour. I look forward to sharing it with you. Hopefully you find something valuable or interesting from the conversation. My name is Harrany Wagner. I'm

one of the wealth advisors here at Blouchet Financial Group. I'm a certified Financial planner and also a certified Private Wealth Advisor, so to designation that relate to working with clients and financial planning as a fiduciary. And this summer I'll celebrate eight years working with Steve and the rest of the team at Bouchet, And you know, I can't tell you just how much I enjoy the work I

do. It's so rewarding and engaging, and I think that's due in part to number one, a great team here, a team that really collaborates and works together. And secondly, of course, our clients, who are some of the most delightful people you could imagine, and I appreciate each one I've

had the pleasure of working with. And because we work as a team at Bouchet, I've actually gotten the privilege of speaking to so many of our clients over the years, even ones that I might not work with as typically, but you know, we take a team approach here, so it's quite common for me to you know, happen to take a phone call or sit in with a client that I might not work with as often as another advisor, fill in for a colleague, or maybe sitting on a meeting to talk about

a subject that I have a special knowledge on. So you know, that's been a big blessing for me, is to talk to so many of our clients over the past eight years, learn about their lives, about their situations, and try to help how I can. So it truly has been a privilege. And you know, around this time of the year, I started to reflect back on you know, I had come up on a work anniversary, thinking about the clients I've worked with and certainly the colleagues, and I

just feel very, very blessed speaking of our team approach. Today, I am filling in for Steve Bouchet typically here here on Saturdays and Sundays. Steve's taking some time away from the show for a little bit. Steve's beautiful wife, Sue, recently passed away, and so Steve will be taking some time to celebrate her life and grieve the deep loss of such a wonderful woman. But he did ask me to share with all of you that he will be back on the airwaves with you soon. And in the meantime, it's my

pleasure to fill in and chat with you for the next hour. And today I am joined by my brilliant colleague Katie Buck, so you'll have the pleasure of hearing her now. Katie, I know you've been on the radio a few times now, but for those who may not have had the pleasure of hearing you on the show before, why don't you take a moment to introduce yoursel great, Thanks Harmony, and good morning everybody. I'm Katie Buck and

I'm an associate Wolf Advisor with THESHA Financial Group. Recently past my CFP exam this past March, which was a great achievement, and as Harmony said, it's a wonderful work environment. We have a great team and I'm just very honored to be here today. Thanks Katie. Well, as I said, you have Katy and I at your disposal for the next hour, So if you have any questions, any financial topics on your mind, don't hesitate to

give us a call. The phone lines are open. That number is one eight hundred talk WGY or one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Katie and I live and breathe this stuff, so we have a lot that we can chat about just the two of us, but you know, I think we'd love to hear even more so what's on your mind, And I'm sure other listeners would too, So please feel free to use those phone

lines and give us a call if there's anything you'd like to discuss. Well, as I typically do, let's kick off with a market recap for the past week. Now, the last week of May, you know, we just closed out out the month. The last week was a little bit lackluster. All three major indexes did end the week down. SMP was down a little over half a percent, NASADAK down one point one percent, and Dow

down point nine to eight for the week. However, when we zoom out and we look at May as a month and you know, even twenty twenty four year to date, all three major indexes actually posted gains for the month. So despite a down week, we're still seeing, you know, a

lot of positive things going on in the markets. For May. The SMP was up four point eight percent, the Dow was up two point three percent, and the Nasdaq, a big winner, gained six point eight eight percent for May, which is its best month since November of last year and represents a full recovery of April's losses for the Nasdaq. So a lot of positive things here, despite you know, a down week, there's still good things going on over the last month and certainly over the last for the year and

last year as well. Out of the last seven months, six have been up for the market, April being the exception, So you know, that's great, great news, and we hope that strength continues. Although you know, as we'll talk about in a few minutes, there's always that, you know, volatility risk out there. We'll talk about some of the factors that are at play there. Buff I'm gonna take a quick break from this market recap to go to the phone lines and chat with Chad. Morning, Chad.

How are you good? How are you? I'm good? Thank you good. I had a question. So the company that I worked for has uh has closed and left. I have a four to one k left over. I'm starting with a new company that again, you know, can I can roll my four one k over? But I was I was wondering if that's the best strategy, or if I should roll this into maybe an IRA or and started just a fresh four oh one k or a wroth with them.

I'm not really not one hundred percent sure. Yeah, that's a great question and probably one that a lot of people, you know have as we find ourselves in those situations throughout our career. There's pros and cons to both, So you know, I'll kind of lay those out and maybe that'll help you in your decision making. So with the four oh one K, if you were to roll it into a new four oh one K, you have some of the benefit of the investment options being pre defined for you, and

that can be a blessing workurse. But for some folks, especially, you know, the average person may not find that they have the time, desire, or knowledge to really self manage an IRA with the universe of investment options open. So at some points it could be it could be nice to just work with the four oh one K for your new employer, where they have

some diversified options already laid out for you. It makes it a little bit easier and so both to choose from, you know, maybe twenty five options as opposed to a lot more, and then you kind of have everything in one place. So I say that's kind of the pros of rolling it in. It does simplify the investment of it a little bit. On the other hand, if you decide to roll it to an IRA, you have, you know, both the opportunity and also the responsibility to self manage it,

so you can be a little bit more tactical. You can select funds that may be more low cost than are than what's available to you in your four oh one K, but you do have that responsibility to monitor it, to be selecting, and you have a much bigger pool of investment options, which you know can be overwhelming at times, but you probably will pay a little

bit less in fees by doing that. There's always administrative fees with the four to oh one K they average between one and two percent of your overall portfolio. But so you can avoid some fees. You can get more tactical investment management, but you do have to do it yourself, so or you can engage an advisor, of course, So those are kind of the pros and cons. I definitely think rolling it out of the four oh one K from your old employer is very wise, especially if they copanies closed down after a

period of time that can be difficult to locate that. So I think you're on the right track by rolling it to either an i RA where you manage it or a four oh one K where your company kind of oversees that correct and and financial advisors such as yourself or whatever if that was to come there, you know obviously you would manage this. How is the how is the fee associated to the to the client? Yeah, that's a great question. So we're a fee only fiduciary meaning that we don't sell anything and okay,

commissioned. So the only way that we get compensated for our work for clients is a fee based on the assets under management. Uh So it starts at one percent and discounts at higher asset levels, and that's the only way that we get paid. That includes all the investment management, financial planning meetings, phone calls with advisors, all of that falls under that asset under management fee. And you can you can find a lot of other advisors that work similarly

as well. There also are advisors out there that you do get commissions for selling different products funds. So it's always good to know, you know what fees you're paying and how your advisor is getting paid. Certainly sure and in rolling and going into the next career with the advantage of a ROTH, Would it be more to my advantage to start a WROTH or just a traditional form

one day if that's what's offered. Yeah, you know, it does kind of depend on your tax bracket now, so if you tend to if you feel that you're in a lower tax bracket now, then you would be when you're in retirement or even the same then it does often make sense to utilize a WROTH even on some level, and to you can even split between pre tax and WROTH because you know you'll pay that tax now, but then it

grows tax free and comes out tax free. So if you can pay tax at a lower rate now or even the same rate and enjoy the tax free growth as you think you will in retirement, then it's often beneficial. Also, if you have time on your side, you know, you have a lot of years before retirement before you need to use this money, roths become even more powerful because of that power of compounding, so it is beneficial.

But pre tax, of course has the tax deduction now, So if you're in a high tax bracket or you're maybe closer to retirement, then pretext could make more sense. But I do see a lot of clients splitting it, and actually, you know that's what I do personally in my own four oh one k I do half and half into ROTH and pre tex, so I get best of both worlds. Okay, all right, well, thank you very much such for your time. Yeah, thank you for calling Chad,

have great weekend also was great. Appreciate Chad calling in and anyone else who wants to just as a reminder with that phone number is one eight hundred talk w g Y one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. We were chatting about the markets for the past week and wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, just some of the things going on, especially in the tech sector. So we talked about NASDAK posting its best months since

November. NASDAC a very tech growth stock heavy index. Of course, one thing that I thought was interesting to note, kind of on the individual company level, was that the share price of Dell drops twenty two percent on Friday, which was actually the worst trading day ever for the stock. So whenever I see a headline like that, you know, that's that's pretty interesting to look into, especially a company that's been around for a long time, to

see, you know, what contributed to its its worst day ever. And very interestingly, at least in my opinion, this came after Dell posted Q one earnings and revenue that actually beat expectations, so you know, you would have thought logically it would have had a good day, But I think where the significant drop came in is that Dell specifically showed some weakness in its commentary regarding AI and the server backlog there, And I think it's just a telling

thing how we're seeing how AI is going to really affect specifically these tech companies. Their ability to use it successfully or not really has the potential to make or break. You know, it's it's it seems it's on everyone's mind. They lay certainly in so many conversations that we're having with clients, is how

the impact of artificial intelligence it is going to have on our world. But you know, especially of course for our perspective, the market perspective on it, and how it affects tech companies, And you know, we're seeing that in a major way right now. The ones that are able to utilize it, that our pioneers and front runners in this space are are doing well. And when a company shows weakness in that area, it really does not bode

well for that share price. So I did find that interesting on an individual level, but I think it is so telling about where we are specifically in the tech sector of the market right now, with just the importance and the weight that AI carries. Katy, I'll kick it over to you for a moment. I know you have some things you want to discuss on the economic front. So I'll let eachat about the consumer confidence. Yeah, thanks, harmony. So over the last three months, we've been seeing a decrease in

consumer confidence, which is finally turned around in the month of May. So the consumer confidence index rows to one two in May and was previously at ninety seven point five in April and was lower before that in the few prior months as well. So consumers are seeing a strong labor market and with less consumers

reporting, the jobs are hard to get. You can see why this number started to increase, but overall, you know, in the grand scheme of things, these numbers are still relatively low compared to consumer confident numbers in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen. The consumer is experiencing higher grocery prices and higher gas

prices, which greatly impacts the consumer's perception of the economy. There is a small resurgence amongst consumers believing a recession will occur within the next twelve months, saying that it is somewhat likely. However, the markets are saying otherwise, and we've been seeing great momentum in the market, and as the Fed continues to battle sticky inflation. So harmony. I feel like this would be a really great time to discuss the inflation report that came out this week. Yeah,

thanks Katie, and thanks for sharing that that information. So on Friday,

we did have the a inflation report. It's the PCEE report stands for Personal Consumption Expenditures, and this index is actually what's widely considered the Fed's preferred inflation measure, as opposed to the CPI, which a lot of folks you know, monitor, maybe a little more closely just generally speaking, but the FED likes to see the pc which strips out food and energy sectors from that price measure, because those two particular areas of consumer spending can be really volatile

all the time, so to strip those out it does give the FED a little bit more of a true sense of where inflation is going. So that came out this past week and showed that it rows zero point two percent in April. That matched expectations and was slower than the point three percent increase from

March, which is a positive thing. And one economist that I was reading remarks that the cooling in the monthly increases represents better news on inflation than we saw in the first quarter, and I really key in on that word better. As we talk a lot about markets don't care nearly as much whether an event or a news item is good or bad. They really care much more if it is better or worse than expectations. So we're seeing improvements. We're

seeing the news on inflation get better than it was not app target. It's not probably what the Fed would deema is good yet, but it is getting better. That bodes well long term for the FED policy and the effects on the economy and the markets. You know, right now, it seems that markets are baking in probably a rate cut, maybe in September seems to be

the most likely option. So you know, this is this is all maintaining that expectation that the Fed will will certainly very unlikely to raise rates again, and that they still may consider that rate cut towards the you know Q three, Q four of this year, which you know markets are looking forward to. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with more here on WGY. Hi everyone, thanks for staying with me through that brief

break. Thanks for joining me today on this beautiful Saturday morning. Like I said earlier, I hope you're joining me from outside somewhere. It is. It is a beautiful June Saturday. I'm Harmony Wagner, one of the wealth advisors at Bouchet Financial Group, and joined by my colleague Katie Buck today chatting with you about all things markets, economy, financial planning, and anything else on your mind. The phone lines are open and on that No, we're

going to go to the phones and chat with Mike from Niskadina. Good morning, Mike, Good morning, Harmony. How are you. I'm great? How are you? I'm good? Thanks. I just have a question in light of your discussion of the Naza, BA Tech Heavy and AI. If one is invested in the video now that they've announced a ten for one stock split, do you recommend buying more now or waiting until the split or not doing anything. Yeah, that's a great question. You know, the the

split is beneficial. It does make it, you know, more affordable for for folks to buy it. It's not going to affect what you hold now in terms of the value, of course, and you still hold the same value. You will just hold more, you know, more shares for a lower price each. I think whenever we're evaluating whether to buy more or what to do with with any individual stock or position and and index fund anything. You know, you really just only want to consider the future potential of it.

It's easy to say, well, you know, I spent this much on it and it's it's up here. What do I do now? That is that tends to be an irrelevant you know, consideration. So you know, when you're looking at it and saying, you know, hey, I feel that in Vidia is doing good things. I'm confident that they're going to be one of the front runners when it comes to AI, that they're going to be, you know, really a necessary part of this kind of next age, then then I would say that that would be a sign that you

should consider purchasing more. Of course, you want to always manage that single stock risk as well, which we'll talk about probably a little bit later in

the show. But you know, if you're finding that in Video is becoming a large part of your overall portfolio, usually when it becomes more than five to ten percent, and this is true of any individual stock, you know you're starting to put yourself in a little bit of a risky zone where the factors that influence one single company are going to impact your portfolio disproportionately, So i'd certainly keep that threshold in mind, that five to ten percent of your

overall portfolio and making sure it's below that threshold. But you know, if you still feel confident about the future, especially that particular company, you know, it is a great option. What I might consider as more of a kind of conservative diversified is to buy a diversified fund that holds in video as

a top holding. That kind of spreads it out a little bit, you know, like we're seeing with Dell one bad you know, commentary on their AI section of their business can tank the company stock, and that could happen to even the one that seems most promising today. So you know, I might pursue more of a diversified approach buying a tech fund or ETF that holds in video and you get that kind of a participation without as much of the

single stock risk. That's what I just at least urge you to think about. But I don't think the stock split will will affect necessarily whether investors want to buy more or not. It'll just make it more affordable for some. Okay, great, thank you very much. Yeah, my pleasure, Mike, thanks for calling great well. As we kind of close out the economic uh part of the conversation today, one thing I also wanted to highlight is that it has been a very strong month for stock buybacks. You know,

Katie was just talking a few minutes ago about the consumer Confidence Index. Well, stock buybacks represent kind of a telling sign about corporate confidence. And we actually saw a record high, all time high in May with one hundred and fifty four different companies announcing planned buybacks of two hundred and one billion. That is a record high, like I said, for the month of May, and it's just seeing showing a strong trend for the year. This is this

is not new to May. There was a really high amount of companies repurchasing their company stock in the whole first quarter of this year, purchasing two hundred and two billion. So we're really seeing strong corporate confidence in future earnings and

that is, you know, a good sign. We're that's something we like to see and when we're evaluating companies for our client portfolios, you know, looking at that stock buyback plan is something that we are definitely considering as we as we look at those market factors in the analysis that we do for our client portfolios. So that's something that's that's interesting, I thought and noteworthy. Now, the question that you know, I seem to get every day every

client meeting is what do we expect? What's the rest of twenty twenty four gonna gonna hold? And you know, of course that's the answer that that no one can can really give. Of course, we can continue to expect some volatility, although you know, I feel that it's a little bit of a freebie for any financial advisor to say that. Obviously, these are markets

and there's always going to be some level of volatility potential out there. And yet at the same time, we all can get complacent from time to time, and when we have a smooth week, month, quarter year, sometimes we forget that volatility is, you know, as much a part of investing as anything. So it is something to always be aware of, and especially in an election year, you know, the likelihood of volatility is high.

But you know, one analogy I heard recently that I've been sharing in a lot of client meetings because it's certainly resonated with me as I think about it is, you know, you kind of picture a person who's walking a dog on a leash and and they're going to the park. That person kind of represents the economy, the long term trends of the markets. You know, if you looked at a chart over the last fifty seventy five hundred years and you zoomed out far enough, it would look like a very smooth up and

up trajectory for the markets. And so it's kind of like that person who is walking, who has a place that they're going and it is going to get there. However, when we go into close and look at the day to day, week to week, months to month behavior of the markets, that represents that the dog on the leash that runs forward to check out a

squirrel runs the side, and can behave so erratically. You know it's going to be ultimately in line with the long term trajectory, but it is difficult to predict on any single day, month, or even you know, the rest of the year what's gonna happen. And we do know from history that politics can can certainly impact that and create a lot of short term noise, uh and can make it difficult to you know, really kind of cut through

the headlines at times. You know, I think that's one of the big keys, you know, wherever you find yourself on that uh, you know, on either side is it's to strip out the biases, to strip out the things you're reading in the media, and to really be able to look you know, through a you can't you can't be totally unbiased, but to as much as you can kind of take those biases out and look at the market news, the financial news and make the decisions that we know are the

good decisions long term. You know that, I think that is really the the important part as we look at the rest of the year and then applies to any year. You know, there's there will always be volatility. So making sure that you're doing the right things, that you're kind of taking that objective, unbiased approach, not letting emotions make the decisions for you. That

that is I think what separates the average investor from the good ones. But the ones that do well over time, the average investor underperforms uh, the the s and p over time. Uh. And that's probably because of emotion and the factors that make us, you know, do irrational decisions even though we have you know, the knowledge of what to do at our fingertips. Uh. So that is something to always remember as if we go as we go through life and we try to manage our personal finances, the best we

can is to try to keep that unbiased approach as much as possible. Well, we're coming up to the news break here, but we have a lot of exciting topics to talk about after after the news, what's talk about some things that you can be doing in your own personal portfolio. We're going to talk about charitable giving and the four percent rule of retirement. You hear that a lot. What does it mean for you? We'll be back very soon

with more here, let's talk money. Brought to you by Bluchet Financial Group on WGY. Don't go away, Good morning, and welcome back. This is Harmony Wagner joining you on this beautiful June Saturday morning. I can't believe it's the first day of June. Crazy health, How the year flies, and especially once the weather turns nice, the months just go by so fast. Well, thank you for joining me today and listening in. And also on today, I'm joined by my colleague Katie Buck, who is one of

our associate wealth advisors and one of our financial planning experts. So I think we're gonna kind of shift gears here from the macro discussion of the markets in the economy, and let's talk a little bit more about, you know, specific advice for people who are saying, you know, all this is great love hearing about, you know, what's going on in our country, you know, on the high level for the markets in the economy. But what do I do about it? What do I do? How do I manage

my own personal finances in the best way? So let's talk about some of those things. We are almost halfway through the year now, so it's kind of a good point to sometimes take a pause, take a review of your financial situation and things that you have going on for yourself personally when it comes to your finances, and to make sure that you know everything's where it should

be and on track. You know, I sometimes joke with clients, especially you know, folks who are you know, maybe a bit younger, earlier in their careers, where it's really more about being on the right track as opposed to doing necessarily a lot of different financial maneuvers. You know, I like to say, if you can do you know, the right thing for a couple hours out of the year financially, you don't have to think about

it for the whole rest of the year. You know, really, once you're on the right track, it becomes a lot easier to kind of monitor things and just you know, stay on the right track. Easier to steer a moving car than a parked one. So let's chat about a few things. You know, I'll chat about a few I know Katie has some that she wants to share as well. What are our key reminders for you all, our our wonderful listening audience. The first one that I would say is

that I have it through the year. It's a great time to review your investment allocation in all your accounts and hopefully you know you're as consolidated as you could be, meaning that you know you don't have four four oh one k's all spread around from previous employers and things going on a lot of different places. You know, for most folks, you want to keep it as simple as you can. Have you know, one four oh one K with your current employer, maybe one I ray, if you had, you know,

previous jobs that you roll funds into. We talked with chat about that earlier about kind of the pros and cons there are, roth Ira, if you're able to contribute or if you did at any point in your life. And then oftentimes a brokerage account maybe you know, individual or joint with the spouse, but a non retirement taxable account. That's usually for most people all they really need. There's not a need to have, you know, many different

accounts spread out all over the place. It can make things harder. But wherever, how however your accounts fall, you know, it's a good time to look at the investment allocation in each one and potentially rebalance. You know, when we see times like the past almost eighteen months where you know, equities have done so well, and you know, fixed income, although the yield are attractive in the fixed income space, you know, the price movement

has been flattered down over that same timeframe. So what what what happens when we see a situation like that is, you know, let's say you started twenty three twenty twenty three invested, you know eighty twenty well, equities have done so well, and fixed income has probably stayed you know, flat or even a little bit down. So you're probably seeing that your equities make up a much larger proportion of your accounts anymore. You're probably not at that age

want you target anymore. So it can be a good time to rebalance, you know, especially if you have retirement accounts where you can you know, make trades and you know, move things around and adjust that allocation without any tax ramifications. Obviously, in a taxable brokerage account, you have to look at the taxes and and make sure you're not giving yourself a tax bill that is going to hurt come April. But kind of reviewing those investment allocations,

it's a good time to do that. Make sure that you're still at an allocation that is suitable for your risk tolerance, something that you're comfortable with, and to remember that even though you know markets equity markets have done really well the last you know, eighteen months, that you still want to keep that

balance. And if you're an eighty twenty investor, you know you may not want to become a one hundred percent equity investor just because markets are good, because we know that there will be volatility again, and so make sure you're still within your risk tolerance and you know everything's appropriate there. You can also look at the timeframe for each account and sometimes you may find that you want to be a little strategic, so for retirement accounts that have a longer time

frame. You know, maybe you're you still have ten, fifteen years to retirement or longer. You can invest those retirement accounts more aggressively because the short term volatility isn't going to affect you. You're not going to be pulling from those accounts until you're retired, so you can be more aggressive, allow a little more short term volatility in exchange for that long term higher growth potential.

Especially with roths, you get that tax free growth. And for you know, our clients, we often advise them to pull from roths to last, to let them grow all throughout retirement, to pull from iras and taxable accounts first. Let those ross that tax free growth run as long as you can. And even sometimes folks don't even use it in their own lifetimes, it

goes on to their errors. So roths tend to be and you know, these for our clients, at our recommendations, the longest time frame most most typically, and then you may have some taxable accounts, some non retirement accounts, and you're saying, well, I might you know, pull from this in a few years to do something on the house or to take a big

trip you could be a little more conservative there. Money that has a shorter timeframe you can, you know, invest differently as opposed to accounts that have a medium or long term investment horizon. So that's it's a good time to look at all that and consider it. You know, if you work with an advisor, certainly to have that discussion with them, but to make sure

that you're still positioned appropriately. A second point something that you can do to kind of manage your your own personal finance is to not to forget to make any tax adjustments that you may have wanted to make when you filed your taxes.

You know, most people, unless you're on extension, you've had your taxes filed for over a month and a half now, and what may have happened is you may have found either that you had a really large refund, and as nice as that can be to get a big check back, you also know that you you just let Uncle Sam an interest free loan for a

while. So maybe you're saying, I like a refund, but not such a significant one, and I want to kind of make my tax withholdings throughout the year more closely in line with what I'm going to pay good time to do that. You don't want to forget and be in the same situation next April. You want to make those adjustments now. Maybe you know, tweak

those withholdings to make sure that you're withholding enough but not too much. On the flip side, maybe you ended up owing money and you want to make sure that you're not in that kind of situation again, specifically when it comes to paying penalties. If you or under withheld too much, then you will also potentially owe the irs underpayment penalty or a timing penalty. So those are

good things to be aware of to consult with your tax prepare about. If you found yourself in either one of those situations, either getting too large of a refund or owing too much to the government, you want to make sure that you're kind of settling that so while you're still thinking about it now is a good time to that before it gets too late and then the year is

gone and you find yourself in the same situation next year. I'll kick it over to Katie at this point, Katie, why don't you share a couple of points that you have for our listening audience. Sure, another great thing to consider this time of year. Is really evaluating your cash reserves. If you find yourself with excess cash, you know, you can always invest those in treasury bonds. You know, Treasury bonds are New York State tax free. You know, as long as you communicate that with your CPA, that

could be a really good alternative for you. If you find yourself with a little bit extra cash on hand, you know, there are definitely some CDs out there that that definitely could provide some good rates for you as well. Or you can put that money back to work and put it into a diversified portfolio, as Harmony was talking about a bit earlier. And if you haven't already, make sure that you have a three to six months emergency fund.

You know, look at what you need for one month's worth of expenses and make sure it's on that three to six months hold. And you can always put this into a high yield savings account. Right now, I feel like I'm getting around four and a half percent. I know there's definitely some out there that are a lot higher, but you can get some really great online

highield savings accounts with reputable, well known banks. They really just give you that extra monthly interest while reserving that emergency fund, so I really like using those myself. Another really important thing that we definitely consult with our clients every time we meet with them is making sure that their beneficiaries are up to date, making sure that they align with your wishes, and knowing what your beneficiaries

really mean and do for your state plan. So beneficiaries take precedence over your will, they're going to bypass probate and they're going to expedate pretty much the ownership of the account the beneficiary is on. So this is really great if the beneficiary needs the funds for specific certain type of expense, maybe if they need it to help manage your state, if they're the executor or executives of the estate. But anyway, I feel like definitely making sure your beneficiaries are

updated. And this goes for bank accounts, brokerage accounts, investment accounts, anything that you can think of. Make sure that those are all set up properly. Thanks Katie, that is a great point. So I think that's those are four, you know, real easy things that our listeners can do or you know, at least take mental note of. To do all these things wouldn't take you more than a few hours, but that maybe all that

you you know, really need to do well financially for the year. So it's it's a good thing to revisit a couple of times a year to make sure that you're on the right track and that you're staying on the right track. Shifting hears here a little bit, you know, Katie and I something that we work with quite often, you know, here at Bouche with our clients, and we're actually doing a webinar on June twelfth. Coming up on this topic is the topic of charitable giving. And there's you know, so

much that our clients do charitably. We have so many clients that are charitably inclined. I think, you know, I've heard this stat in the past. I don't have the exact numbers, but I think Americans specifically, you know, as opposed to other nations, America does tend to be very generous and in their charitable giving. So I'd imagine a lot of our listeners probably

you know, give on some level. Maybe it's you know, part of your life, big or small, but it is a way for people to give back to the causes that are important to them, whether you know an organization or a church, whatever it might be that is close to your heart that you want to support. There are a lot of ways to support as well, you know, I think that's always worth mentioning Fidel due to the study about about charitable giving and found that two thirds of people don't give as

much as they want to. There's probably a lot of reasons for that. Some folks don't feel confident that the organizations are are using it in the way that they would, you know, like the funds to be used, so that could be a barrier. Some folks are worried about, you know, am I giving to the point where I'm going to put myself at a detriment?

And that's a very real concern for a lot of people. Right You want to make sure that, especially if you're starting out retirement, that you're not going to give so much now that you may, you know, end up hurting yourself down the road. You still have a long time to plan for. So that's certainly a very valid concern. But I think that, you know, and some folks just feel that they don't have the funds to do it, and they they really care a lot about these causes, but

they don't have the funds. You know, I think that's where it's important to remember that money is only one thing you can give. Time is so important as well, volunteering if you have the ability and the opportunity or venue to do so. And also talent, you know, giving you know, the things that you have knowledge in or talent on, that's that's so valuable. So, you know, I certainly don't mean to imply that money is the only thing that you can give that that is is valuable or important.

There are many other things you can do, whether or not you find yourself in a spot that you're able to give financially as much as you'd like. But you know, when it does come to the financial side of it, there are some tax benefits to be had. Obviously that's not the reason people do it. You do it out of the goodness of your heart, but

there there are tax breaks and benefits when you do it strategically. And you know, I think that if you're already giving, and you're already supporting and these important causes, you want to make sure that you're also getting the benefit

that also maximizes the dollars that's going to charity. Right, Let's say you have you know, fifty thousand from an IRA that you'd like to give to a charity, Well, if you don't do it right and you have to pay taxes on it, that's going to mean less money ultimately going to that important cause. So you know it's important to look at it that way as well. You want to fully utilize that tax benefit so that you know,

you benefit yourself, but also that charitable organization does. So you know, Katie, are going to take a few moments to talk about the some of the charitable vehicles that we use. So Katie, why don't you chat a little bit about donor advised funds and how you've seen our clients use those. Yeah? Absolutely, So why don't I talk about what a donor advised fund is? First? So, a donor advice fund, and you might often see this written out as a DAF in short, is a charitable giving vehicle

that can be administered by a financial institution. So there's definitely some that Charles Schwab, who we use as the custodian, has, but I'm sure there are other other custodians like Vandgarden Fidelity that also may have this as well. Donors contribute to the fund and receive an immediate tax deduction for the donation, and instead of donating directly to the charities, and mind you, these charities

have to be IRS approved five o' one C three charities. The donor can choose when those contributions should be distributed to that qualified nonprofit organization over time. So what this really means is this is a great opportunity for people to front

load donations. So if you feel as if you donate five thousand dollars a year to the American Cancer Society, and you know that there's you had a large bonus coming up in the year, or there's going to be a different change in your tax situation, your CPA or your financial professional might actually recommend front loading so they know that you give this five thousand dollars annually, maybe put in fifteen thousand dollars this year, you're going to get that fifteen thousand

dollars immediate tax deduction, and you can hold these funds in the account and give out five thousand this year, five thousand the next year, and five thousand the third year. But this is more of a strategic way to give

and also help you with your tax situation as it applies to you. I don't want to give too much away about the points that we have within our webinar that's happening in June twelfth, but i'd say that there's definitely more to learn about donor advised funds and they're definitely a very strategic and tax advantage vehicle that we've been working with our clients with for sure. Great thanks, Katie. Another one that I wanted to mention, I guess we had kind of

an alphabet soup going here. Katie talked about das donor advice funds, and I want to share a little bit about qcds, which dants for qualified charitable distribution. These both are strategies that you know, really almost anyone can use. You don't have to be giving such an amount that you know you're going

to have your name on a on a college library. Any person who's giving on any level really can probably find a way to use one or both of these, and qcds, especially so qualified charitable distributions are suitable for someone who maybe does not give to a level where they're going to be able to itemize,

especially if they don't have, you know, other itemized deductions. You know, they may find themselves using a standard deduction when they file their taxes, so they may not be getting that charitable benefit for the donations they're making. Well, for folks who are in that situation, but who are at least age seventy and a half and to have iras, they have the opportunity to do a QCD, which is when you give directly from your IRA goes

directly to that charitable organization. Of course, it has to be a five oh one C three and you get the tax deduction for that donation even if you don't itemize. What that looks like is it goes right from the IRA, zero tax withholding for federal or state purposes, So the full amount of your donation goes straight to the charity. None of it goes gets remitted to the IRS for tax withholding, and you have that ability to you know,

get that tax reduction. It's a tax free distribution from the IRA because it is going to charity again even if you don't itemize, So it's a great way to get that charitable benefit regardless of you know, how you file your taxes. Then a lot of folks take the standard deduction right now because it is higher than it has been previously, so that is a really good benefit.

Again, you have to be seventy and a half, so it doesn't work for everyone, but if you're at least seventy and a half years old and you have an IRA, that is really a great option for you. So these are kind of some of the charitable things that we see often with with our clients, and there are there are a few more. You know, we'll talk a little bit more on our webinars Katie alluded to about charitable trusts and also foundations. So if those are things that you've considered or want

to hear more about, you know, head to our web site. We do have the webinar coming out on June twelve. Even if you can't tune in live, the replay is available very shortly after. We're on our website Bouchet dot com, and you might you might find it of interest, you know. I know, Katie and I certainly do, and I really enjoy working with clients on this and helping them meet their charitable goals, but you

know, doing so in the most strategic way possible. We're gonna head to a quick break here, but we'll be right back to finish our show here on WGY don't go away. Hi, everyone, thanks for staying with me through that brief break. This is Harmony Wagner, one of the wealth of vegers at Bouchet Financial Group, and I'm also joined today by my colleague Katie Buck and we're talking about markets, economy, financial planning, and any other

financial topic that's on your mind. The phone lines are open, and you know, even though we're coming down to the bottom of the hour, you know there's still time if you have an urgent question, please give us a call one eight hundred talk WGY. That number is one eight hundred eight two five five nine four nine. Before we, you know, close out today's

show. There was one thing Katie and I were talking about this week and reading some articles about that, you know, I thought was really interesting for our more broad listening audience because it's something that you've probably heard a lot, and that is this concept of a four percent rule for retirement. And the way it works is simplified is let's say you know, you have a million

dollar portfolio. You can expect to spend four percent of that, so you know, forty thousand dollars every year throughout your retirement and you will not you know, run out of money or deplete your principle to the point where it's you know, to your detriment. That's the real simplified back of a Napkin version. But you know, it's kind of this rule that's been publicized.

A lot of people are aware of it, and actually, you know, in some of our research this week, we found that over sixty percent of financial advisors recommend that and live by that four percent rule, saying, you know, when we're advising our clients, we're going to tell them they can plan to spend four percent of their portfolio each year in retirement. The idea being that you know, if you can earn more than four percent in your

portfolio, that you'll you'll never dip into the principle. And what we have discovered as we kind of look into it, and there's been of course, many studies on this over the years, that that rule is nothing new, But when we look into it, and especially as we work with a lot of our clients on financial planning, we find that that four percent rule can be a little bit safe for a lot of clients. Now, of course, it depends on the situation. There are so many factors that go into

it. But we do find that the four percent rule can be a little bit low. And when you actually look at it historically for thirty year rolling periods everyone since nineteen fifty so you know, nineteen fifty through nineteen eighty and you start a new one in nineteen fifty one through nineteen eighty one. When we look at all the thirty year rolling periods, there was only three that if you spent five percent, that you would have run into an issue.

So what that kind of hints to us is that, you know, number one, it's not a hard and fast rule for anyone. That's why it's so important to work with someone that you trust who can guide you through that. But also this four percent rule that a lot of even advisors out there are still living by, can be a little bit too conservative at times. So you know, it is something kind of interesting. But before, I want to take a moment to go to the phones here before we run out

of time, so let's chat with Tim from Clifton Park. Morning. Tim, good morning, Just quick question, Uh, would you recommend uh if it to put the full of Mount in for a roth Ira right now? Or should I put you know, through like a dollar cost averaging. Oh, that's a great question. So I cannot tell you what will happen for the rest of the year up until you know the deadline for twenty twenty four WROTH contribution. If I could, I would, you know, be more

famous than I am. What I would say is that, you know, there is always a risk that you put money in and then the markets go down and you say, oh, you know, I didn't do it at the best time. Either way, you're at a much better advantage than someone who didn't fund a ROTH at all. So props to you if you're going to do it. I think if you feel that for yourself, that that would really bother you if you were to say, you know, I put money in in June, and in July the market went down and I had

a much better opportunity. I think a dollar cost averishing approach does make sense, and you don't want to get too crazy with it, so, you know, especially the WROTH amount is only seven thousand for the year if you're under fifty eight thousand if you're fifty year older, So with the you know, an amount of that, you don't want to necessarily be doing. You know, one hundred dollars every week if it becomes too too much to vantage.

But you know, even if you want to do half now and plan to do half in a few months and then if you see a better opportunity you accelerate that, it is a great way to kind of, you know, minimize the potential regret of doing something now and realizing in a few months that it wasn't the best time. So either approach works. There are pros and cons to both, but you know, mainly I just commend you for funding a roth Ira in the first place. It's one of the best things

you can do, so very prudent on your part. Oh and I really appreciate your points. It's, you know, something for me to really think about. Thank you so much. Really appreciate your show with a long time listener. Thanks Tim, We appreciate you awesome. Well, you know,

going back to where we were chatting before, Tim's great question. You know, Katie, we are coming to the bottom of the hour, but if you don't mind sharing for just a minute here, you know, actually I don't want to go there, Walt to tease it, I'll be back on the radio and in two weeks so we will go and right into this when when I'm back with you. Sorry, Katie, didn't want to have you cut off at band here. Awesome. Well, thank you so much to

everybody for tuning in today. You know, as I always say, I appreciate your time. You know, we have longtime listeners like Tim and maybe some folks who are tuning in for the first time, and either way, it was a pleasure to spend the last hour with you. We'll be back here tomorrow morning at eight am on WGY, but until then, thank you for listening to Let's Talk Money, brought to you by Bouche Financial Group, where we help our clients prioritize their health or we manage their wealth for life.

Stay safe and healthy and enjoy this beautiful weekend. Goodbye,