Make It Last with Victor Medina - Legal & Financial Retirement Planning

In this episode, Victor interviews Professor Jamie Hopkins. Professor Hopkins is the Director of Retirement Research for the Carson Group (an organization that assists financial advisors), and teaches retirement planning at the American College of Financial Services and is the author of the book “Rewirement : Rewiring the Way You Think About Retirement“.

This is a fantastic interview that covers all of the major mistakes of retirement planning as well as what the future might hold for retirees.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA) and Certified Financial Planner professional (CFP). Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Palante Wealth Advisors.

On Thursday, May 23rd, the House of Representatives passed a sweeping reform to the 401k laws. How will it affect you?

Also, much of the news in the world of investment choices has focused on the advent of no-fee or pay-to-own investments. Are these a good idea?

Finally, Social Security is one of those areas with lots of misconceptions that can lead to bad assumptions. How can you avoid making mistakes?

Answers to all of these questions on today’s show.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA®) and Certified Financial Planner™ professional (CFP). Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Palante Wealth Advisors.

Too often we are led astray by looking for a magic pill or secret. In segment 1 of today’s show, Victor discusses how to avoid investment strategies that don’t work, plus potential new retirement plan laws that might affect your 401k.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA®) and Certified Financial Planner™ professional (CFP). Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Palante Wealth Advisors.

In this episode, Victor discusses why international stocks are an important asset class, even as they have lagged behind in performance vs domestic stocks. Also, how do you create a retirement map to help you get from Point A to Point B?

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA®) and Certified Financial Planner™ professional (CFP). Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Palante Wealth Advisors.

In this episode, Victor shares 9 scary retirement statistics, as well as strategies to avoid becoming one of those statistics. In addition, Victor covers which advisor credentials matter, and which are pure bunk.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA®) and Certified Financial Planner™ professional (CFP). Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Palante Wealth Advisors.

Lottery winners often spend all of their winnings within 5 years of getting the money. Why? Because they failed to have a plan. Don’t let that happen to you. In this episode, Victor shares top strategies for making sure you have the best chance of making your money last in retirement.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA®) and Certified Financial Planner™ professional (CFP). Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Palante Wealth Advisors.

Click below to read the full transcript…

[background music]

Announcer:  Welcome to “Make It Last” helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest eggs secure with your host, Victor Medina, an estate‑planning, elder law attorney, and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Everybody, welcome back to Make It Last. I’m your host Victor Medina. I’m glad that you can join us. This Wednesday for another fun adventure in the world of legal and financial retirement planning. Got a great show for you today. What we’re going to be talking about is whether or not your money is going to last through retirement.

I don’t know about you, I love to think about winning the lottery. I don’t actually ever play it. I know the math involved, but I do think about winning it. I save a buck, but I am getting the value of the fantasy that I can play. When you end up thinking that through, you’ve got to consider whether or not you’re going to get a lump sum. Are you going to get an annuity for life?

They’ll give you those two options when you buy the lotto ticket. If you’re thinking about getting the lump sum, you might think about winning the lotto and figuring that you’re set for life. That’s how we all want to retire.

I find it interesting, because almost every report around lottery winning basically says that all the lottery winners, the majority of them spend through their money very quickly. Some of them within five years of the day that they receive the money. I know it sounds hard to believe but it happens. The question is, why? Why is this?

The answer is pretty simple, which is that the people who win the lotto, they fail to plan ahead. This is a windfall and they don’t ever think about themselves. First of all, either having to plan because it’s so much money that who needs to plan around that, or they didn’t think it through ahead of them winning.

In other words, they didn’t go in and put a full plan in place as though they were going to win the lotto. It’s the lotto, they’re not supposed to be winning it. From that perspective, it’s understandable that they don’t have a plan on how to spend their lottery winnings. Although most pre‑retirees and retirees don’t have the same fortune as lottery winners, they face a similar situation.

They need to be smart with their money so that it lasts a lifetime. This is the reason why every book that I write in the name of this show is Make It Last. That is the principal goal for someone entering into retirement. They want to make it last for themselves, and they want to make it last for the people around them.

Most people set aside money as they’re working so that they one day can retire and have a nice nest egg. In order for that money to last to retirement, it’s very important to have a plan to convert your savings into retirement income, to have additional savings be withdrawn to meet the cost of living increases over time.

Just like everything else in retirement, income taxes need to be preplanned. The first half of the show, Victor will cover how you can be most prepared for your 2019 income taxes, especially with this new tax law. If you want even more information on how you can be most prepared for 2019 tax season, text INVITE to 609-554-5936 and you will receive an invitation to Medina Law Group & Palante Wealthe Advisor’s 2019 Tax Planning Lunch & Learn on April 29th at 12pm.

In the second half of the show, Victor shares some insight on how to can avoid these 7 deadly retirement sins, baby boomers have reportedly been committing.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA®) and Certified Financial Planner™ professional (CFP). Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Palante Wealth Advisors.

Click below to read the full transcript…

[background music]

Announcer:  Welcome to “Make It Last.” Helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure. With your host, Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Hey everybody, welcome back to Make It Last. I’m you host Victor Medina. I’m so glad that you can join us today for another fun and exciting, whirlwind tour of what it’s like to be in the world of people in financial retirement planning.

I’m your host, and I would tell you I’m excited about today’s show because I’ve got two things that are really going to be topical for you. Good information that you’re going to be able to use as you start to plan your retirement.

We just got through filing our taxes. The deadline was Monday, April 15th, and I hope for your sake you were ahead of that and nobody behind. The IRS and the State Government do not like it when you either don’t file or don’t pay.

I’m glad that we got that done by Monday. You had that extra weekend to work on that on your own if you wanted to. It does get me thinking about the planning that we could be doing for next year.

In fact, one of the things that we’re doing, now you’ve got to be a common client of ours in order to attend, but we are holding a client lunch and learn on April 29th here on our offices. Let me do this, for listeners of the show only, we’re going to open up registration for that client lunch and learn for you.

Because I think it’s so important that you get a head of tax planning that I want to make this available to absolutely everyone. What you can do is text the word invite, I‑N‑V‑I‑T‑E to 609‑554‑5936, that is 609‑554‑5936.

If you text the word invite to that, we’ll chat with you a little bit, get your email address and invite you to our lunch and learn on April 29th, where what we’re going to be talking about is how to proactively plan for income taxes that you’re going to be having to file for next year.

When we think about that there are a few changes that are important for us to know. There’s going to be some changes ‑‑ six tax changes ‑‑ that I want to go through with you that are important that have changed since the most recent tax laws changing.

When you come in through this and trying to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing for the next year, six changes for retirees. Now, during the course of the seminar that we’re going to be hosting at the workshop on April 29th. Here in our offices, by the way ‑‑ I don’t know if I mentioned that ‑‑ but here in Pennington,

Today is a very special episode!

1. It marks the 100th episode recorded &

2. It marks the 2 year anniversary of Make It Last Radio.

Thank you for following the program for 2 years and 100 episodes. I am excited for what the future holds and to keep sharing great legal and retirement information.

The topic for today is Medicare coverage and why it should not be your sole coverage in retirement. Many people believe that Medicare will cover all healthcare costs in retirement. Listen today to see how following that belief could become your most costly mistake.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA®) and Certified Financial Planner™ professional (CFP). Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Palante Wealth Advisors.

In this episode Victor goes over some legal and retirement updates – the status of the law which will allow terminally ill patients to have the “right to die” & the status of the Nevada fiduciary law.

The main topic of the episode is retirement fees. Fees in retirement can add up in a hurry, and if you want to make sure you won’t run out of money, you need to keep as much as you can in your portfolio at all times. Today’s episode will help you not only locate your fees and calculate what they are but will teach you how to control those fees.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA®) and Certified Financial Planner™ professional (CFP). Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Palante Wealth Advisors.

Click below to read the full transcription…

Announcer:  Welcome to “Make It Last,” helping you keep your legal ducks in a row and your nest egg secure, with your host, Victor Medina, an estate planning and elder law attorney and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Hey, everybody! Welcome back to Make It Last. I’m your host, Victor Medina. I’m glad you can join us on this fun and exciting journey through retirement planning, both from a legal and financial perspective. We’ve got a great show for you today. I must talk to you today, in the next couple of segments, about how to control your retirement fees.

I think this is really important because in the whole idea about every penny counting is, it’s difficult to find, calculate and control your fees in retirement. It’s funny, I think, because most people fail to think about the cost of their investments and their financial advice, in the same way that they would consider the cost of other aspects of your life.

My wife will go and shop for deals, just absolute deals, on the same thing across four stores until she gets the best deal. It’s not the same in the investing world.

There’s just people who don’t think about it that way. I think that it’s really, of course, in their best interest to make sure that they’re paying the least amount to get the best that they can get.

The more money that you’ve got in your pocket is, well, just that, much more money. [laughs] You certainly want to keep as much of the money that you have earned as you can. You want to keep as much of the money as you’ve been able to get to grow as you can.

There’s a sweet spot, I think, because you can absolutely get costs of zero. You’re paying nothing for advice and then you will see if you can’t do better by doing that versus doing something else, right? You’ve got to be able to compare and control those and make a smart decision.

This, I think, of course is especially important once you get to your retirement. Once you hit retirement, you are fully in control of 100 percent of your assets even if most of the stuff has been in 401(k)s before or somewhere else. You can now collect all of these and fees add up in a hurry.

You want to make sure that you won’t run out of money. In order to do that, you’ve got to keep as much as you can inside of your retirement nest egg at all times.

Today’s show, it’s not only going to help you locate your fees and calculate what they are, but also teach you how to control them going forward.

Before I get to that, there have been some developments in the news that I want to share with you, especially if you are a New Jersey resident.

Transitioning into retirement is going to be a big change for a lot of people. Likely you have been used to the routine of working for the past 20 or 30 years. Retirement is going to cause major changes to not only your routine but also your financial situation. The best thing you can do when gearing up for retirement is begin planning, and begin planning early.

One of the recommendations Victor makes in this episode is to begin planning for taxes when you are in retirement. If you would like to download a FREE retirement guide for taxes just text TAX to 609-554-5936.

Make It Last with Victor Medina is hosted by Victor J. Medina, an estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA®) and Certified Financial Planner™ professional (CFP). Through his law firm and independent registered investment advisory company, Victor provides 360º Wealth Protection Strategies for individuals in or nearing retirement.

For more information, visit Medina Law Group or Palante Wealth Advisors.

Click below to read the full transcription…

[background music]

Announcer:  Welcome to Make It Last. Helping you keep your legal ducks in a row, and your nest egg secure. With your host, Victor Medina, an estate planning and Elder law attorney and certified financial planner.

Victor J. Medina:  Everyone welcome back to Make It Last. I am your host Victor Medina, I’m so glad that you can join us for another edition of the best advice in the legal and financial retirement world. You are lucky to be listening to the show because there is no other show like it, anywhere in the world.

In fact, I’m going to go out so far to say that this is the best show that talks about legal and financial planning being hosted by a state plan attorney, who is also a certified financial planner.

I’m excited for today’s show because we’re going to be talking about how you entered the sort of the uncharted borders of the new retirement life. If you enter the unfamiliar world of retirement, what should you focus on first?

I’m going talk to you about that today, and I’m going to tell you that one of the things that has me excited about it is, the truth of the matter is that, trying something new can often be very nerve‑wracking.

Are you going to be successful? Are you going to face challenges? What if it’s not for you? Can you go back to the way things were, if it wasn’t?

Many times, making a decision to try something new is cutting off doing what you were doing in the past. If that’s the way that we deal with everything, what does it feel like if you picture it around your potential retirement? It could probably be very, very stressful.

You could work a career that spans 20 or 30 years, or more. Where I’m located, there are a lot of people who work for Johnson & Johnson, and Johnson & Johnson is basically known for equaling. You will work there for 30 years of your life, and then you will retire.

That change happens, you start to wonder, “Am I going to be OK? What if life in the next phase is not what I wanted it to be? How can I change things to be happier there?” There’s a lot of questions around that, and we’re going to talk about that.

We’re going to talk about what steps you should take first, how you establish a game plan so that you’ll be comfortable as you step forward into this new lifestyle.

I remember somebody once told me that when you retire everybody feels like Saturday, so let’s make sure that you are prepared to enjoy all the Saturdays of life that you have for yourself. Before I do, I want to talk to you a little bit about some upcoming things that are on the schedule.

If you’re interested in learning more about state planning ...