Did you ever think about purchasing real estate as an investment, but decided that the hassle of being a landlord or dealing with a property management company wasn’t for you, especially after you retire? If so, you may be surprised to learn that it’s much easier to invest in great real estate without owning an apartment building, a house, a condo, or an office building than ever before. Recently, the financial industry has created great real estate products available to investors looking to div...
Mar 10, 2020•46 min•Ep. 23
If you’re approaching or just reached retirement age, you probably have questions about supplemental Medicare coverage and Advantage plans. What you do at this critical point can be the difference between saving tens - or hundreds - of thousands of dollars on medical coverage, so it’s worth getting expert help as you make these decisions. Returning to the podcast to discuss this complex issue is Tom Allen. We recorded two previous episodes about Medicare in Season One of The Guided Retirement Sh...
Mar 03, 2020•49 min•Ep. 22
When you retire, you don’t stop having to make decisions, set intentions for your life, making plans, or working with people to achieve your goals. No matter what your career looked like, you’re now the CEO of your household - and your life - and the rules of success in business aren’t that different from the ones that help you succeed in retirement. Tony Lewis’ Extensive experience is proof of this. He’s had a 30-year career in the military, served as the CEO of ConAgra, and now works with Vist...
Feb 25, 2020•48 min•Ep. 21
When things go wrong, there’s nothing more humbling than taking a long, hard look in the mirror. We all know how hard it is to do this, and how much easier it is to blame everyone around us and the external forces impacting our lives for our misfortunes, whether they’re personal or professional. This is just as true in retirement, where I’ve seen so many people blame the markets, interest rates, and other factors instead of taking their own plans and issues into account. Joe Lieberman explores t...
Feb 18, 2020•45 min•Ep. 20
Have you ever wanted to buy a company that’s doing well or get involved with turning a struggling company around? It’s what private equity investors do every single day. They partner with businesses, build teams, and create plans with an aim to transform the company and generate serious returns. However, few individuals outside the world of finance know that it’s possible to invest side by side with private equity firms to make their work a real part of your portfolio. Greg Anderson, the Preside...
Feb 11, 2020•46 min•Ep. 19
No one wants to work hard and spend frugally for decades only to find themselves paying more than their entire annual budget in taxes after retirement, but it happens far more often than you might think. I’ve seen it happen, and so has JoAnn Huber. JoAnn is a CPA, Certified Financial Planner, and Partner at Barber Financial Group. Last season, she joined the podcast to discuss the difference between Roth and traditional IRAs and 401(k)s, and I highly recommend going back to listen to those episo...
Feb 04, 2020•51 min•Ep. 18
There’s nothing easy about building a portfolio designed to get you through retirement, and this is especially true in the event of an economic downturn. Emotional investing and aggressive reactions to bad news can make matters even worse, and these factors all have the power to turn your retirement from the greatest vacation of your life into something less fulfilling. To build a truly effective retirement plan, you need to be able to truly look at the economy and deeply understand how to choos...
Jan 28, 2020•47 min•Ep. 17
Retirees are now living their lives and doing business online, relying on all sorts of products and tools to manage their finances, keep in touch with loved ones, and keep their homes warm and secure. However, this also means that there are now more opportunities than ever before for cybercriminals to take advantage of you, steal your identity, and take your money. Many businesses have teams to help protect their employees, but few have anything similar at home, where the effects of a successful...
Jan 21, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 16
In my 32 years in the financial industry, I’ve learned one thing: unless you’re working with a great financial planner, you likely don’t know exactly how much risk you’re taking on. There are countless investment products out there with different risk and return profiles, a number of ways to meaningfully assess risk, and more opportunities than ever before for retirees to be either overconservative or overextended. Today, I have Brad Kasper, the president and founder of LSA Portfolio Analytics r...
Jan 14, 2020•49 min•Ep. 15
Retirement is all about checking things off the bucket list. It’s a time to turn hard work into incredible experiences, truly connect with loved ones, and create memories that will last a lifetime - and for many retirees, that means travel. Mark Comfort is a master in the art of travel. He’s the owner of Cruise Holidays and Comfort Tours, and he has spent over 31 years coordinating the complicated moving parts in his clients’ trips, making sure that things go right, and providing extraordinary c...
Jan 07, 2020•52 min•Ep. 14
In our previous podcast episode, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® Bud Kasper, Jason Newcomer and I discussed the differences between ETFs and mutual funds to help you truly understand which product is best for your portfolio. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, please check out episode 12 before you listen to this one. Today, we continue our deep dive into this topic. You’ll learn how to decipher the differences between the many different options, the tax efficiency of both mutual funds and ETFs,...
Jul 23, 2019•40 min•Ep. 13
Many investors have had questions lately about the difference between mutual funds and ETFs: why choose one over the other? Are they the same? What differentiates these two products, why are there so many offerings that appear to be so similar, and which is the best choice for my portfolio, especially as I approach retirement? To help answer this question, I’m joined today by Bud Kasper and Jason Newcomer. Bud is one of the first CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERS® in Kansas City, and in his over 40 y...
Jul 23, 2019•38 min•Ep. 12
There’s a lot that you need to understand before you set out to build your own retirement portfolio. In the first part of my conversation with Brad Kasper (episode 10), we had a big-picture discussion of what makes a portfolio successful, the dangers of emotional investing, and why math and data will always beat attempting to time the markets. If you haven’t already, go listen to that episode first. Today, I go deeper into my conversation with Brad. You’ll learn why so many people get derailed w...
Jul 23, 2019•41 min•Ep. 11
When it comes to retiring, nothing matters more than building a portfolio that allows you to achieve your goals, and no one knows this better than Brad Kasper. As the president of LSA Portfolio Analytics, Brad Kasper helps 440 financial advisors manage over $8.5 billion in assets by building better portfolios for his clients, working directly with them instead of tying into client assets. He believes in using math to create solid strategies to meet goals, and as simple as that may sound, it’s le...
Jul 23, 2019•44 min•Ep. 10
In Part One of my conversation with Barber Financial Group estate planning attorneys Garrett Griffin and Jason Salinardi, we discussed the basics of wills, estate planning, and the tricky legal situations families and beneficiaries can find themselves in after you die or become incapacitated. Check out Part 1 (episode 8) if you haven’t yet - I highly recommend you do before listening to Part 2. Today, we continue our discussion by diving a little bit deeper. We focus predominantly on how DIY pla...
Jul 23, 2019•37 min•Ep. 9
One thing is certain: at some point in time, all of us won't be alive on this Earth. This means that we all need proper estate plans. Many people, however, fail to set their estate plans up correctly, keep them up to date, or even title their assets properly - and as many as 60% of Americans don’t have a plan at all. That’s why today, we’re diving deep into the very basics of estate planning. I’m joined by Garrett Griffin and Jason Salinardi, Barber Financial Group’s estate planning attorneys. W...
Jul 23, 2019•36 min•Ep. 8
In our previous episode, certified Medicare specialist Tom Allen and I discussed what Medicare actually is and what it’s designed to do. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 (episode 6), I strongly recommend you do so now. There are so many nuances to health insurance, and it’s very easy to get caught in financially devastating traps if you aren’t careful. That’s why today, in the second part of our series, we continue our conversation with Tom about Medicare. We discuss why Medicare has become so ...
Jul 23, 2019•42 min•Ep. 7
For many retiring seniors, Medicare is super confusing. There are lots of misconceptions about how it works, how supplements work, and what you should be doing in your retirement years to ensure that you’re covered. Tom Allen is a Medicare and supplemental insurance expert. Every year, he stays on top of the latest and greatest in this extraordinary complex field, and knows how to talk about it in a way that even a second grader could understand. Today, in the first part of a two-part series, To...
Jul 23, 2019•36 min•Ep. 6
You don’t have to read stories about people like Alan Stanford and Bernie Madoff or The Wolf of Wall Street to learn about scams and abuses in the financial services industry. In fact, fraud and abuse often hits much closer to home, and the growing senior population all over the world gets more likely to be taken advantage of with every passing year. Over $3 billion is reported as lost to scammers, fraud, and financial abuse each year, but the actual number is likely much, much higher. Today, in...
Jul 23, 2019•34 min•Ep. 5
When many people build their financial plans, they only envision an ideal retirement where nothing goes wrong. They assume they’re going to live long, happy, healthy lives, that nothing’s ever going to get in their way, and that the future is going to go exactly to plan. Unfortunately, this rarely proves to be the case - and retirement plans built on this fantasy often don’t address countless “what if” scenarios that could negatively impact retirement. Assisted healthcare and long-term care, bey...
Jul 23, 2019•24 min•Ep. 4
Why do we do what we do? What motivates us? These are big questions - and they apply just as much to financial services as they do everything else in our lives. Brie Williams, the Vice President of State Street Global Advisors , has dedicated her career to helping financial advisory firms facilitate efficiency and growth beyond asset management. She’s passionate about helping people achieve better outcomes. Today, in the first part of a three-part series, she joins the podcast to talk about the ...
Jul 23, 2019•26 min•Ep. 3
Last week, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® and CPA JoAnn Huber and I kicked off the podcast with a discussion about the differences between the IRA and the Roth IRA. However, we barely scratched the surface, and if you’re feeling confused after listening to Part 1 of our conversation, that’s okay. This is one of the most important financial decisions you will make on the road to retirement. It’s also a complicated one to answer, and there’s no clear one-size-fits-all plan that works perfectly for e...
Jul 23, 2019•27 min•Ep. 2
For many people, the 401(k) is their largest asset. However, there are several different types of 401(k) plans, each of which follows a different series of rules and regulations. Choosing the wrong type of 401(k) can have significant consequences in retirement - and can drastically affect your quality of life for years to come. To make matters worse, when a typical financial advisor tells you about the differences between 401(k)s, it’s easy to feel your eyes glossing over as you get completely l...
Jul 23, 2019•39 min•Ep. 1
