Casual Cocktail Conversations and Client Coffee Quarterly at The Truesdell Companies
Wednesday, December 31, 2025 – Episode 526
Somewhere along the way, the financial services industry decided that the best way to talk to people about their money was to put them in a conference room with stale coffee, a PowerPoint presentation, and a sales pitch dressed up as education. You sit there for an hour, maybe two, nodding along while someone reads bullet points off a screen and wonders why you are not more excited about their proprietary mutual fund.
Well, that is not how we do things at Truesdell Wealth.
Starting in the first quarter of 2026, we are hosting a series of Casual Cocktail Conversations at the Stonewater Club in Stone Creek. These are not seminars. They are not sales presentations. TheyCasual Cocktail Conversations and Client Coffee Quarterly  are exactly what the name suggests, conversations. You show up, grab a drink, sit down with people who are in the same chapter of life you are, and we talk about the things that actually matter when you are fifty-five or older and thinking seriously about retirement.
The format is simple. I pick a topic that deserves more than a thirty-second explanation, and we dig into it. Not with jargon. Not with complicated charts designed to make you feel stupid so you will hand over your money. Just plain talk about real issues.
On January 11th, we start with Buckets of Income with Clarity. This is the straightforward approach to retirement income that separates your fixed money from your flexible money. You will know exactly what is safe, what is moderate, what is growing, and what you can actually spend. No guessing. No hoping. No waking up at two in the morning wondering if the market just ate your grocery budget.
January 25th is Hidden Investment Costs, Fees, and Expenses in Plain View. Here is a number for you: ninety-five percent of investors have no idea what they are actually paying. The financial industry has gotten remarkably good at burying costs inside layers of fees, expense ratios, and trading costs that never show up on your statement. They do not hide these fees because they are proud of them. We are going to pull back the curtain and show you where the money goes. Awareness is not optional when your retirement depends on it.
February 8th covers Essential Florida Estate Documents and Much More. If you moved to Florida thinking a will from Ohio was good enough, you need to be in this room. We are talking about the must-have documents, the second marriage complications, the blended family landmines, and the probate surprises that catch retirees off guard every single day. This is not the glamorous side of planning, but it is the side that keeps your family out of court and your wishes intact.
February 22nd is The IRA Tax Bomb, Social Security Cliff, and Cost of War. That IRA you have been contributing to for thirty years? It is not your money. It is a delayed tax bill with your name on it. Social Security is under strain, and unless you have been living under a rock, you have noticed that global conflict tends to change economic assumptions in ways nobody predicts. We are going to talk about what all of this means for your income planning right now, not in some theoretical future.
March 8th brings The Truesdell Retirement Meltdown Calculator. I built this tool thirty-five years ago and have been updating it ever since. It shows your income, your spending, your risk, and your longevity under real-world conditions. Not best-case fantasy scenarios. Real conditions. I will demonstrate it live, and every client gets unlimited access to use it themselves.
Then on March 22nd, we wrap up the quarter with The Big Five Truesdell Investment Portfolios and More. This is how we build durable, disciplined portfolios, how allocations work, and how we manage risk in a world that seems determined to surprise us. We will cover blended equal weight indexing with fractional shares, and if that sounds confusing, that is precisely why you need to attend.
Now, for our existing clients and their invited guests, we have something different. On Wednesday, March 11th, we are holding the Client Quarterly, a private briefing over coffee where I walk through major economic, business, and investment developments. This is not a pep rally. This is a serious look at what is happening, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis and a few intelligence sources that do not show up in the morning headlines. I will explain why forecasting is disciplined mathematics while prediction is just guesswork with confidence, and how we incorporate the Rumsfeld framework of knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns into how we think about risks, realities, and opportunities.
If you are a client, you are invited. If you have friends or family who ought to hear this, bring them along.
These conversations are for people who want straight answers, not sales pitches. If that sounds like you, we will see you at Stonewater.