Plan With The Tax Man

What can we learn about money by exploring some quotes from the great Mark Twain?

Important Links

Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

Call: 844-707-7381

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome into this edition of Plan With The Tax Man. We appreciate your time as always here on the podcast with Tony Mauro as we talk investing, finance and retirement. What's going on my friend. How are you?

Tony: I'm good. Weather's turning good here, finally getting out of the rainy season and things are good.

Speaker 1: That's always nice. Yeah. It's good to be in June. We are now into that time of the year. Where you guys are at, has it been cool? Has it been a cool May? Our May has been very not normal.

Tony: Ours has been, too. It's been unseasonably cool and a lot of rain and usually we're beyond that by May.

Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. And COVID and all that stuff aside, it's just been weird and then you add that into the mix and obviously, it's certainly been a really odd, but I'm glad to hear that it's [inaudible 00:00:54]. Because like for us, we have to share with our listeners before we're in different states, usually we're pretty darn toasty in May and we haven't even hit 90 yet, which is unusual for us. We'll see how it plays out.

Speaker 1: But anyway, we're going to jump into our topic this week. We're going to talk a little Mark Twain actually so that could be fun. We're going to see what Mark can teach us about money. Much like Will Rogers and several, Yogi Berra, some other famous folks through the years, they have these useful, interesting nuggets and ways of looking at life. And I think there's certainly some good stuff we can take from some of those guys and Mark Twain is one of them. And you think about obviously COVID and everything that's been going on, this first one I've got Tony is pretty apropos. He's like, "Apparently, there is nothing that cannot happen today." That's one of his sayings. It seems like when you just think you've been hit with everything you can get hit with something else will show up.

Tony: Something else will show up. And I have to admit in the interest of full disclosure, when I was a kid, I had no interest in Mark Twain and never wanted to read anything of his. And then as I got older, some of these things kind of came about, I was like, this guy is pretty interesting and little did I know until I learned more about him, what kind of guy he really was. But yeah, this little snip that he's got here really I think is appropriate in the time we're living in right now, which is the whole COVID virus thing still going on, and I think he meant it towards anything that can happen out of the ordinary generally does and you need to plan appropriately for that, especially with your portfolios.

Tony: And we always think of it in the financial world as just another financial crisis, economic downturn, recession comes to mind and then this whole COVID thing comes up and hits everyone. And when I say everyone, the world, by surprise, in my opinion, and unprecedented times we're now living in, no one has a plan for it. The government doesn't have a plan. And so for us as individuals and then of course, as advisors, it has forced us to take a hard look at things, especially on just the basic financial planning side. I think it's never more important than it is today.

Speaker 1: Well, yeah. With everything that's been going on, it's easy to get singularly focused, I suppose, on various things. And we've talked about that off and on over the last several weeks with the whole COVID thing. And as we're starting to pull more and more out of it, we have to remember that we can't just shut everything down and whatever camp you're in, as far as the economy and things of that nature, I mean internally, we can't just shut everything down and say, well, the only thing I can allow myself to do right now is worry about whether or not me or my family catches coronavirus. I think that you have to continue to want to live and push yourself forward and do all those normal things. I think most of us are pretty good about that and know that overall, but there's certainly no shortage of stuff can come out of nowhere and slap you. And just when you think the day is, it's like, okay, it can't get any worse. Well, sometimes it can. Just be careful there.

Speaker 1: Now, we've all heard that saying, Tony, and I think the popular way of viewing that is actually incorrect. That money is the root of all evil. I think actually it says the lust or the love of money is the root of all evil is the way it actually goes. But Mark said the lack of money is the root of all evil. What's your thoughts there?

Tony: Well, I'll tell you, he's got it right there because yeah, most people associate money with evil and there's a thousand sayings about money, whether it's good or bad-

Speaker 1: We also associate it with happiness, too. [crosstalk 00:04:48] it can't buy love, but it can buy happiness.

Tony: I say the money for most, I think people got to look at it as it's there for you not to serve it, for it to be a servant for you, meaning that it's only a tool that you're using to get the things in life that you want. And that's what's different for everybody. But I think the main thing, especially as you get into retirement, when you can't or don't want to work anymore, it's really comes down to it's not how much I have, but do I have an income coming in and how long am I going to need that income because boy, that makes life, especially towards the end, theoretically, a lot less stressful when that all is put into motion or in place, if you will. If you don't have that at, toward the end especially, and you haven't done the planning well, then it becomes a stressful time. And I think that's maybe what he talks about a little bit there is the lack of that is going to cause you some problems late in life.

Speaker 1: Well, and we go to retirement and I'll play the devil's advocate here, but it's easy to have those lofty goals and say money isn't everything. And then that is certainly true, but when we're talking A, on a financial show and B, with what it is that you do in retirement, one of those main goals, if not the main goal, is to make sure that you do have the income. Not necessarily because you want to have all the money in the world, but because you certainly want to be able to take care of yourself, provide for yourself and because also, we are physically getting into that point where we can't necessarily go out and work the way we used to in order to provide for ourselves. I think it's clearly important to make sure that we're not running out of money and so to kind of use that Mark Twain analogy, that the lack of money certainly can be problematic for folks.

Tony: And I think another thing, and I use it with clients a lot, and I try to tell them, for me and hopefully for you, money does have to put food on your table, roof over your head and whatnot, but after that, what I feel it's like is it buys you time. Not time to live, but time so that you can go out and enjoy the things that are important to you while you are here because otherwise... I always tell people, too, if money wasn't a factor in this world and money meant nothing and we could go out and do and have fun, not need to work, we would all do that because that's what we all want to do at the end of the day. But the lack of that money or planning and you're having to work maybe until you can't work anymore, it just goes to show you that you've got to have something there, otherwise it's a stressful time.

Speaker 1: With what's going on in the world, there are certainly folks that are like, well, why can't we just do that? Let's just stay home and have the government send us money. And it's like, well, you can continue to mortgage your kids' and grandkids' the future, but at some point, you just can't print it endlessly. I don't know, maybe you can. I don't know, but I don't think you can.

Tony: I know.

Speaker 1: And speaking of the government and I was wrestling whether I was going to throw this one out, Tony, but it's just too good to not and you figure Mark Twain lived in, what, 150 years ago?

Tony: Something like that.

Speaker 1: You know what I mean? And so even then, he has this saying, and he's like, "Suppose you were an idiot and now suppose you are a member of Congress, but I repeat myself."

Tony: Even then.

Speaker 1: Even then Congress was idiots.

Tony: No, I know it. And really, I think what he's talking about there is you really can't worry about or depend on what the government's going to do [crosstalk 00:08:35] policies and procedures and applying it to the financial situation and planning and whether they adapt new laws to make the IRA tax deferred or not, or whether they put new laws have to do with taxes going up or down. There's always going to be some change and you can't worry about that. You definitely got to get your own situation under control. And from a financial standpoint, you don't want to have to worry about the news and what's coming out of Washington affect you other than just being in the know about it.

Speaker 1: Sure. Because there's not a lot we can do anyway. And yes, of course, while, quote unquote, our vote makes a difference, in the end, what's going to happen is what's going to happen. How many times have you voted for somebody that said they won't this and they certainly do. It's one of those things that we all kind of know is the case and I think that's a good way of looking at it, especially when it comes to things like social security or whatnot. We don't know what's going to happen, down the way with that. We assume that no politician will be the one who wants to be like, well, it's gone and there's nothing we can do about it because they won't stick around for very long. We'll assume that something gets done, but you just never know. To use a Mark Twain type of word, rather than worry about all that tomfoolery in Washington, focus on how you can try to be as independent from it as you can. And then of course, social security's coming in or whatever happens with taxes, you're prepared to your point. Good stuff there when we're talking about Mark Twain and what he can teach us about money.

Speaker 1: Now this is another pretty awesome classic one and this is certainly relevant to what's been happening as well. He says, "October is one of the particularly dangerous months for speculating in stocks and there's other months as well, July, January and September, April, November, March, may, June, December, August, and February."

Tony: Basically every month is what he's saying.

Speaker 1: Which was great. It's a fantastic way of saying, look speculating in stocks is dangerous anytime.

Tony: Anything. And the keyword is speculating versus investing for your future. And to his point, and even going back to the crash of '87 and then historically, October for trading stocks generally is not that good, but hopefully you're not doing that. Hopefully, you're investing throughout the year, every year as part of a plan and you're not trying to speculate and turn a thousand dollars into a hundred thousand dollars because that is speculation and that doesn't come around very often. And not that you can't do that and take a little bit of your money and do a little bit of that, but that's more of what I call gambling, where you're going to take your money out to the track or the casino and chances are you're going to lose it.

Tony: And that's not the issue with a comprehensive plan and in today's environment, even right now, six weeks ago, seven weeks ago, well, it's probably been about what two, three months now. The market was doing very nicely and it has recovered some, but it has been extremely choppy. No one saw this coming necessarily and it has nothing to do with really the economy. At least it didn't early on, it's catching up now. I think what he's talking about there is you've got to get a plan. You've got to stick to the plan. Every month there's going to be things that you can't control. And as long as you're setting money aside, it's still one of the best places to make money over the long term.

Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. And having a well thought out plan that kind of takes your time horizon, your age into account, we had a conversation, Tony, you and I, and months back on a podcast where if you were saying, well, boy, I didn't get all of '19. '19 finished, what, 30 something odd percent was what the market finished up for 2019. And some folks might be like, well, I didn't make that much. And it's like, well, yeah, because you were diversified in a way to protect you in case of a downturn. And of course, that same person would have been quite pleased come '20 when it did fall because they may not have fallen the full 30% or 35% that it did. It's all about making sure that whatever your plan is, is that it's tied in nicely to a goal to an overall setup.

Speaker 1: And I will say, speaking of goals, I've got a couple more here, but before we do that, I was going to ask you, I know you're a big golf fan. Did you get a chance to check out one of the very few sporting events that have happened? Did you get a chance to see the Match 2 here this past weekend or so ago with a Tiger and Phil and Peyton Manning and Tom Brady?

Tony: I didn't. I was actually golfing during it, but I heard it was very good. It sounded to me like the people that watched it had a lot of fun sort of the commentary.

Speaker 1: There's some good clips on YouTube you can go check out, just highlights and things of that nature on various different places. But as a golf fan should probably check it out, it was a lot of fun and there's some pretty good shots on there as well, but a lot of good ribbing and stuff going on.

Tony: [crosstalk 00:13:26].

Speaker 1: It raised like $20 million.

Tony: Which is great-

Speaker 1: Fantastic.

Tony: And I do have it taped and I do plan on watching it. I have not watched it yet. It's good that they tried to raise some money. I like that. And it's weird how much we miss all sports, even if you're not a golf fan and you just end up watching just for something to do.

Speaker 1: Same thing with NASCAR coming back and they had a couple of races. I think their numbers, their viewership numbers were pretty high and it was like, well, because they're the only game in town, literally.

Tony: Literally.

Speaker 1: People are checking it out. Anyway, I just wanted to ask you about that. I'll be curious to, on another podcast, I'll ask you if you had a chance to check it out. It was pretty good, though. I enjoyed it.

Speaker 1: Let's hit maybe one more here, maybe two more, we'll see. We're on time. The secret to getting ahead, and this is great, is getting started. That's a fantastic quote for really any avenue of life, but certainly, we all know that the sooner we can start saving for retirement, the better, but it's also just good to just start period. Even if it's today and you're still behind, then just start.

Tony: Got to start somewhere, yes. A lot of times people get in the middle age group and then beyond and they say, well, it's starting to get too late. I just won't do anything. And that's the exact wrong thing to do. You can make headway, you can make progress and get to some goals. They may not be the goals that you had when you were 30 or 25, but if you don't do anything and don't get started on something, chances are, just like we were talking about earlier, that you're going to have a real lack of money at the end when you're going to desperately need it. You do have to get something going, it's going to start with goals, going to start with where you're at now and how long you have until maybe you want to retire and then start working backwards from there.

Tony: But I think the other thing, too, a different saying from a different guy, it's not my own, sometimes the best way out of a hole is to stop digging and that's so true. Similar to this is if you've dug yourself into a little bit of hole financially, whether it be some bad decisions with credit or other things, you got to just stop digging the hole and generally, you can get out of it. It may take a little time, but generally those things are [inaudible 00:15:46], but you got to get something going.

Speaker 1: For any of us fellas out there that have ever tried to give someone, maybe their wife or somebody, a compliment and it went sideways on you and you just kept talking and she's like, stop digging, you're just making it worse.

Tony: Making it worse, yeah.

Speaker 1: Same kind of idea.

Tony: Yes, it is.

Speaker 1: There you go. Well, you know what, actually in the interest of time, I think we're going to wrap it up this week, but that was a good place to leave it on as well. Take any action. The secret of getting ahead is getting started. No matter where you're at, make sure that you're taking the steps forward. Listening to this podcast, learning some things, picking up some useful nuggets along the way, that certainly can count as taking initiative, getting started, things of that nature.

Speaker 1: If you have questions or concerns as always before you take any action, you should always reach out to Tony and have a conversation with him. You can call him at 844-707-7381. That's 844-707-7381. You can go to the website, yourplanningpros.com. That's yourplanningpros.com and check out Tony's website there. And of course, as always, we would appreciate it if you subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you choose, whether it's Apple, Google, Spotify, or whatever, the one you liked the best is just type in Plan With the Tax Man and search that out in, let's say, Apple's field for example and it'll pop up and you just hit the little subscribe button and we'd certainly appreciate it. And Tony, thanks for your time my friend. I hope you have a good week and be careful with some of these saying here. Watch out for those months, man. They're tricky.

Tony: Tricky, but you got to take care until next time.

Speaker 1: That's right. Well, have a great week folks. We'll see you next time here on Plan with the Tax Man with Tony Mauro of Des Moines Professional Alternative Tax Doctor Inc. We'll see you next time.

Let’s talk about some financial planning “strategies” that don’t really work (even though some people, even some financial advisors, believe in them).

Important Links

Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

Call: 844-707-7381

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome in to another edition of Plan With The Tax Man. Thank you for tuning into the podcast. We appreciate your time. As always, hope that everyone is staying safe and sane out there as we are edging our way back into some levels of normalcy, and with that Tony, welcome in my friend, how are you? You doing okay?

Tony: I'm still doing good. How about you?

Speaker 1: Hanging in there. We are doing the same thing. We are very close to being set free here in our neck of the woods now that we're into mid May, so hopefully we're seeing much, much more [inaudible 00:00:29] all over the place. I thought this go around... We talked last week, or a couple of weeks ago there, about just kind of the state of things, we had a bit of a hiatus due to the coronavirus, but we are doing our podcast regularly again and I thought we would kind of touch on some strategies this week that just don't work.

Speaker 1: A lot of things happening obviously in the world of finance and will continue to happen all through 2020. I think it's just going to be an interesting rocky year of all kinds. I think you and I even talked about that quite a bit last year as the year was winding down. Obviously we did not foresee just how rocky it was going to be thanks to the bug, but we certainly... I think a lot of people just felt like 2020 in general, election year and just a lot of things, it was going to be kind of volatile. So let's talk about a few financial strategies that don't really work, even though they kind of keep finding their way to the forefront of conversations.

Speaker 1: We'll start it with the market. Because of what has been going on in March and in April and all the volatility, you hear questions, you hear people saying tell me stuff like, well since it's being so volatile and work's being the way it's been with the coronavirus, maybe I shouldn't be pumping money into my 401k like I normally would if you're still working, or maybe I should get out so that I don't lose any more then I'll jump back in later when it starts to get better.

Speaker 1: If you tried to do that in late March when it was down 12% one day and up six the next, then down 10 the next, there's no way.

Tony: There's absolutely not. We've been getting a lot of calls on it about just what you said. Everything from, "Well, do you think I should stop contributing to my 401k? Do you think I should move all my money to cash?" I've had clients say I want to open up an investment account and invest in stocks even though that they've never done it before because they feel like the market was way down. Which in theory that's okay, but we've been trying to tell them, well, one, with the 401ks we've been telling people, unless you are in financial dire straights, you need to keep investing in your 401k because obviously you're automatically then buying when things are down because those funds are continuing to buy stocks and bonds and whatnot. So, that's not a good option to try to time that.

Tony: I think what's even worse and what I love to catch people on from a planning point of view is when they say they want to put some money in stocks because they want to buy... And they'll actually give me individual stocks. I had a client who was an accounting client who's never invested before, call me and say, "Well I want to put $20,000 in Dow Chemical." And I said, "Well, why?" And he said, "I don't know. It looks like it's down." I said, "That's it?" And I said, "Well, so what if it goes down more instead of up?" They don't have answers to those kinds of questions. When I try to draw them out on that I say, "Timing the market like this generally doesn't work for us individuals very well." Information is happening so fast and just with a few little stocks, especially what they want to do really is they want to make a very fast gain. I attribute it to almost like go and throw a couple chips out gambling.

Speaker 1: Well yeah, because you see some of these... Especially, obviously now here into May, it's stabilized a bit more, but in late March there everything's dropping, there are those folks who can smartly say, "Hey look, it's down. This is a good time to buy." And that's true. It is, it can be. Now, every time horizon is different and if you're getting closer to retirement, all those kinds of things you've got to factor in and you've got to talk with your advisor about how it's going to affect your plan. But a lot of people were kind of doing that, oh well this particular stock is way, way down. But I think that's going to...

Speaker 1: I don't know, let's just use cruise ships for an example. Right? You know, they're taking a beating so should we get in on them because, I don't know, six months from now or whatever, they'll be killing it when things get back to normal or whatnot. Again, maybe, but that's being speculative. So if you're going to do that, as an advisor, Tony, if somebody is really interested in doing that, is that how you approach the conversation? Do you say, "Look, that's fine if you really have your mind set on it, but let's make sure it's not affecting retirement plans or the overall investment strategy. Let's make that the speculative money and not get too crazy."

Tony: Exactly, and that's what we tell them, especially if we haven't worked with them before and we don't have any idea what their real financial situation is. I've actually told clients, I won't work with you. Because if this is a little bit of speculation money and you want to do that, then there's some strict criteria that I'll go through with them to say that, first of all, I want to know what your financial situation is to know that you're not just playing with money you should not be. Number two is, I want to know, if you can't tell me, then I'll tell you what your buy and sell disciplines are because us as financial planners, some people look at us still as the old stock brokers where we're all sitting and we have inside information or we're watching charts that they don't see. All this stuff's public now.

Tony: We as advisors are not that role. I certainly am not. I know most advisors aren't, is we're trying to help people get to their end goals. I tell them, for example, I said, "Let's say you put $10,000 into this stock and let's say that it goes up, I don't know, in let's say a year, a hypothetical, and it's now worth $15,000. Nice gain. Very nice gain. But is $5,000 really life changing to you in the big picture? I would say in most cases not. Yeah, it's nice to have, but at the same time, well you lose 5,000 and now you're devastated." I try to get them thinking of the bigger picture and trying to not get them trying to be a stock picker.

Speaker 1: And that's another strategy that doesn't work either. Timing the market, picking the stocks. I'm glad you brought that up. That was actually on my list. It doesn't really matter what, I guess, economic era we're in or what's going on, those are some, not tried and true, but those are some believed methods that just continue to permeate and they never really work.

Tony: They don't work. I mean, people want to try to pick individual stocks as in my example. I've had a couple clients call and what they were looking at was the airlines. The airline, they're way down, travel's way off. Airlines are volatile industry and they always are. I try to stress to them and tell them that may be the case, but I think you're going to have to be really patient and be able to say, I got to give this two, three, four, five years possibly before these things really... And that's assuming that they have good financials and the economy stays good.

Tony: There's so much that goes into that. I always like to tell them, if I was an expert stock picker, I certainly wouldn't be working, nor would the guys, I believe sometimes on Wall Street.

Speaker 1: You'd be sitting on your island and enjoying all your...

Tony: I'd be sitting on a yacht somewhere. It's a slow steady growth. While I think yes, there are some people that can make some fast money, I think for the average person, it's just not going to be that possible. If they do, then that's going to be the one time in a long time. You can't get in that mindset why, geez, this is pretty easy. I can do this every couple of months or every year and I'm going to be set.

Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know, it'd be like the lottery or lightening striking, right? If you do happen to get lucky and hit one one time, I imagine that's got to be tough because it could be much like a drug and you're like, I'm going to do that again. But the odds are just astronomical. So, proper planning to ensure that your... It's like anything. It's like making a budget when you first had a family or whatever the case is. You've got all these things that you say, okay Christmas time when you first have a family and you're building your family, you're like, well we can't go overboard on the kids at Christmas because A, we're setting this precedent and B, we want to make sure that we don't mess up our budget for regular life.

Speaker 1: We learn as we're going through these things, and so as we get closer to retirement or we're pre-retirees or whatever, and we're doing investing, we want to make sure that we have that good base built that's going to take care of us as we age. But yeah, I get the understanding, the itch to want to speculate a little bit, but just make sure you're doing it responsibly and it's something you can afford to lose.

Tony: That's exactly it. And my last story there really, the same client that asked me about Dow Chemical, in the same conversation said he had went out and Googled, if you had bought, of course everybody does this with some of these stocks that I'm talking about. Apple, when it first came out and you still held it today you'd have this many millions of dollars. My first point to him was, "Well, very, very few actually buy something like that and hold it for this long."

Tony: And I said, "But if it goes to prove though, if you are and do have the discipline to do that, that's how you're rewarded." But many, many don't. As soon as they make a little money, boom, they're out and then they're onto something new and then that one, they lose money and then longterm instead of having a lot of money basically have what you started with or worse.

Speaker 1: Well, investing is a marathon, right? Not a sprint.

Tony: A marathon. That's exactly it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So those are two strategies right off the bat Tony, that are again, they show up all the time, they just really don't work. Timing the market, picking the right stocks. Another one is the whole... And we're going to continue on through, we won't focus on just the investment, we won't focus on some other things as well, some other strategies.

Speaker 1: The whole taking care of each other thing. So my wife, I'm 50, my wife's just a couple of years behind me. We have the conversation every now and again. But you have these people who will say, "Well we're not going to have to worry about a nursing home because we're going to care for one another, our kids are all help out," whatever that kind of scenario looks like. I don't know if that's just fear of talking about or dealing with the potential to think the term "nursing home," which, and that might not even be a nursing home, it might just be a longterm care event in general. Or if it's just the mortality thing or what it might be, but that seems to be a really shortsighted way of looking at things because...

Speaker 1: My wife will say to me now, she's like, "There's no way I can..." I've got a bad back and she's like, "I can't pick you up when you're on the ground now when I'm 45 and healthy, how could I do it when I'm 70."

Tony: That's right. And we get a lot of people that I think for some they'll immediately when you start talking about it, they want to not talk about it because they're denying the fact that they're ever going to need this. But if they can get past that, then a lot of them immediately look to longterm care insurance. I've heard of that. I cringe. It's too expensive and I'm never going to use it. Then to others, really that may not make sense, but you need to at least have a plan in place of what you'll do if one or both of you need some kind of care and be able to have that plan and have it shared with others as you age and whatnot.

Tony: Because I think for a certain segment of the population, I think it comes down to income in a lot of situations. I think people at the lower end of the income spectrum probably don't need longterm care insurance. A, they can't afford it and B, if they need care, they're probably going to be on Medicaid if it's longer term. The problem with that though is many people don't need that long longterm care, they can just need in home care, they need care of some kind and that they have to plan for that somehow. Whether it's federal assistance, whether it's some kind of reduced policy. Then there's people on the other end of the spectrum that have a lot of assets and a lot of money, probably can self-insure most of the time. If you're above a certain amount then maybe you don't have that need, but you still have to have a plan.

Tony: Here's how it's going to work, here's what's going to happen, here's how it's going to happen. But it's everybody in between, which is the bulk of us. It is, well I probably am not going to qualify for Medicaid. I don't maybe have enough to self-insure for five years. I need to have a policy just like I do on my home or my auto and I just have to live with it. I just bought one on myself and my wife and I'm just now going to be 53 this June. I had put that out there, but it's still relatively inexpensive and it's just something we felt we had to have watching my wife's mom go through it without any insurance. Basically the kids trying to take care of her and it was five years of... And anybody that's been through it will tell you, torture, mental torture and it's tough to watch.

Speaker 1: No, it's definitely tough to watch that. The same analogy, if you break that down to saying well, the kids are going to help take care of us. I mean that's putting a lot on family strain and individual. So again, that's a strategy that just doesn't work. Really take the time to talk with your advisor. It's not a pleasant conversation but a little forethought can just stave off a lot of heartache later on to discuss what you're going to do in the event of some form of longterm care requirement. The reality is it's one in three people I think. So, it's something you just have to discuss. We'll hit one more here on our episode this week, and it kind of falls into that same line Tony a little bit.

Speaker 1: My mom is kind of guilty of this. I'm guilty of this a little bit as well. But, basing or guessing, I suppose, at your retirement planning process, your longterm care needs around the assumption that your life will mirror your parents or your family history, the hereditary of it. Most of the men in my family do pass away before 70 so I tend to ride this thought that I will probably die a little earlier, maybe in my seventies. Maybe I'm kind of giving myself the medical advances and saying well I'll probably get into my seventies, but I don't foresee 80 coming down the pike. But with that being said, I'm trying to plan as though I will make it to a 100.

Tony: Yes. I think that's a good assumption is to plan that you are going to live into your mid to late eighties and even beyond because that's, I don't want to say worst case scenario, because usually that's a good thing depending on the quality of life you have. But, from a financial standpoint is a good thing because you want to make sure that you don't run out of money, and that's every retirees fear is just getting up into those ages and maybe you do run out of money and you can't work at that point. I think that some of us tend to look at this too literally and just mirror that and say, "Well, I'm only going to live this long so I'll go ahead and my retirement should be okay because I'm going to spend this much."

Tony: Then they outlive that guess, and they end up with a different type of lifestyle. I think on the flip side too, this is just a personal opinion, I'd love to live into my mid to late eighties which should be great. But obviously, and I think we all want the same thing, we want that quality of life that we have in forties fifties. For a lot of us that just isn't going to be there. It's not anything we've done. The body is going to potentially fall apart, who knows? Are we coming down with some chronic disease? The lifestyle may not be what you had hoped for. So I do think there's a delicate balance there, that you obviously you want to live in the moment while planning for that old age to make sure you don't run out of money.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a good point. I imagine from multiple standpoints, whether it's health or wealth, I imagine you don't have too many people calling you and saying, "I want to work on a retirement plan where my lifestyle is less in retirement than what it was going into it." So you do have to kind of plan your way through those things. From a health side, obviously we've got this interesting new element that we were all dealing with here this last six, seven weeks, but it's still one of those things where we have to focus on that as well. Being active and all the things, and overall societally we are. We are living longer. We are living better for the most part prior to this thing happening. For the most part, everybody is doing a little bit better in a lot of cases.

Speaker 1: Sure there are markers, there are hereditary markers that can, I guess, impact your health, but it's not the be all end all. The medicine that and the treatments that my grandfather and my father got is not the same that I'm getting. So you got to bear that in mind.

Tony: Exactly.

Speaker 1: Yeah. All right. I think that's a good podcast to kind of leave people with some thoughts to think about. It's easy to kind of get pulled into these conversation pieces, these financial strategies that just kind of continue to hang around that people talk about a lot. Timing the market, picking stocks, putting your head in the sand when it comes to the longevity of life or the lifestyle, but they're never a good strategy.

Speaker 1: Do yourself a favor. Do your retirement a favor. Talk with your advisor, work with an advisor, and talk with yourselves as well. A great place to go is having an initial conversation about some of these things with your loved ones and making sure you're on the same page and then planning through that with an advisor like Tony Mauro, which is why we call the show Plan With The Tax Man. So, if you need some help, you got some questions, at this point you should know what to do, but if you don't, I'll tell you again, it's (844) 707-7381. That's how you can call him and let him know you want to chat. That's (844) 707-7381. With everything going on, you can have a phone conversation, you could have a virtual meeting. There's lots of things happening so you can still take some action.

Speaker 1: But if you are working with Tony or you know someone who might benefit from the message and you have not yet subscribed to the show, we would certainly appreciate it. You can just simply go to yourplanningpros.com. You'll see the podcast page there. You can check out Tony's website, a lot of good tools, tips, and resources. And of course, while you're there, you could subscribe to the show. You could also just search Plan With The Tax Man on Apple or Google or Spotify or whatever platform you choose. We would certainly appreciate it. And with that, Tony, I'm going to let you go this week, but have a safe, sane week and I will talk to you real soon.

Tony: All right, you the same and take care until next time.

Speaker 1: We'll see you next time right here on Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro.

On today's episode we check in with Tony on how things have been going through the month of April for his clients, his team and himself.

Important Links

Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

Call: 844-707-7381

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Marc: Hey everybody, welcome in to Plan With The Tax Man with Tony Mauro. Thank you for tuning into the podcast. We've actually been missing for a couple of weeks, because there's been a lot going on. And so, Tony, how you doing buddy? You hanging in there?

Tony Mauro: We're hanging in. It's been a whirlwind about month and a half here.

Marc: Absolutely. You were telling me, just before we got started, so we're just going to do this week's podcast on just the state of things, how things have been going for you and the business, and your clients, personally. Obviously, tax season, and then Corona virus, and then just wham, wham, wham. How you been getting through with everything?

Tony Mauro: Well, it's been no shortage of information, that's for sure-

Marc: That's for sure, yeah.

Tony Mauro: ... with all the virus stuff going on. Really, for us, here in the Midwest, started about the last week of March, when all of this started happening. And to think, just that long ago, life seemed to be as normal and everything seemed to be going very well.

Marc: Oh yeah. I mean, the record declines from the highs. I mean everything just a super whirlwind.

Tony Mauro: Yeah, and out of everybody's control really. The first thing that came, at least here, and I know that now it's all over the country, is many of the governors have shut down most of their states as far as business goes. Around here, with all the small businesses we serve, it's been very difficult for some, depending on what business they have been in. I think it's going to touch us all, including us, in certain respects because they can't get out and earn a living. Yeah, the last few weeks have-

Marc: The ramifications a few weeks from now, I think, are going to be even more interesting, couple months from now.

Tony Mauro: It really will be. In the last three or four weeks, we've been spending a lot of time not only with our small business clients, trying to help them decipher how to get some federal help with all these PPP funds and different SBA loans, which literally they've been making up the rules as they go.

Marc: Exactly.

Tony Mauro: And changing them about every day as well.

Marc: And changing, yeah, exactly. I mean, with you guys doing tax planning and and being EA and a CFP, I mean, it's just the information overload has had to been interesting for sure. So, trying to appease and talk through clients who are worried about their retirement, as well as talk through clients on the tax situation, and how do I get some government assistance, I imagine you have been cooking.

Tony Mauro: We have bee. So, we have that first of all, and then the IRS, which I think they did the right thing of... It wasn't them, it was Congress, but extended the filing deadline on the individual side to July 15th. And so, that has changed a lot of things. And then, they had the stimulus, and they were still getting tons of questions on the stimulus. Where's my money? I don't have this. I moved. What do I do? The bad part is for the first time in a long, long, time we don't have a lot of answers on some of these things, because we just don't know. The IRS has kind of been shuttered as well. They don't have anybody working, and so we can't get answers. It's hard to tell clients, well you've just got to be patient and you get what you get type of thing. They don't want to hear that.

Marc: Right. And then, you were telling me you're actually doing stuff in the parking lot and stuff in order to try to like work around the social distancing. I mean, I have this mental image in my head. I imagine that was strange.

Tony Mauro: Yeah, it's still going on. We have a sign in the door. People come in if they want to drop off things. They honk a couple of times and we go out. We kind of feel like the old A&W waiters and waitresses for those of you that have been around long enough to know what those are.

Marc: Hey, those are great though, right? I would take that in a heartbeat right now. But yeah.

Tony Mauro: So yeah, we have been doing that and doing a lot of business in the parking lot, and just to try to be on the safe side.

Marc: Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Tony Mauro: I mean, we could let people in, but we're trying to keep everybody, the staff safe, and the clients too.

Marc: Right, right. Well, and your demographic is a little different than just a straight retirement planner who primarily has older folks, because you do taxes and things for businesses. You have a bit of a wider demographic. But in some ways, again, you still want to be cautious of that, because you don't want to be that facilitation point. Are you doing Zoom meetings with clients as well, like most everybody else is doing now, or go to meetings or whatnot when you need to contact somebody and talk them through whatever's going on?

Tony Mauro: We do. I've been using Zoom meetings for a long time.

Marc: Yeah. You and I've been ahead of the curve. We've been doing this on Zoom for a while.

Tony Mauro: For a long time. I mostly used it with accounting clients and payroll clients for our monthly or quarterly meetings.

Marc: Gotcha.

Tony Mauro: It's forced us, on the retail tax side where we normally have clients come in and we do their appointment while they're here, to basically use electronic means, using portals, and then Zoom meetings, and whatnot. For a lot of them, even some of the older folks, have really caught on and say, "Wow, I think I want to do this every year now. I didn't know this was going to be this easy."

Marc: The side benefit, there's all these things we're learning about what business may or may not look like in the future, and that's some of it. I mean, did you see the interesting story, Tony, that sales of tops and blouses and things were up but pants were not?

Tony Mauro: No, I did not see that. That's interesting. Oh, yeah.

Marc: You only have to look nice from the waist up, because you've got your laptop open, and the camera, and you're being filmed for a business meeting, or like you're talking about, working with clients and stuff. So, people are at home with their jammies on, and then they've got a nice dress shirt or something like that. So, all these interesting things that have come out of this. I imagine that clients have embraced some of that said, "Hey, okay." I imagine, for some people, once they get over the fear of transferring documents securely, which I mean, your information's been out there for a while now. I mean, if you basically have filed taxes in the last decade, your information's out there.

Tony Mauro: It is. Even we store all the client copies out on a secure portal [crosstalk 00:06:08].

Marc: Right, right. But, just in general, people are always amazed that... They're like, "Oh, I don't want my information out in the cloud." And it's like, if you pay anything electronically ever there's a lot of information out there on you. I'm glad to see that people are embracing it. I'm seeing that. You know I talk with people all across the country and doing this different kinds of shows and I see different pockets of areas where maybe retirees, or pre-retirees that are really close, they're a little leery of that at first. They're like, "Well, okay fine, we'll do the webcam meeting, but I don't want to send any documents." That started to, like you said, it started to ebb and flow, and people are realizing, hey, this may be... A, it's easier once they get over that initial concern. And then, it may be just the necessary evil for a while.

Tony Mauro: I think it will be on a lot of fronts, I know for us, especially now with our electronic portal on the tax side. Before, people I think were a little apprehensive uploading documents, because, A, a lot of them didn't have scanners or the right kind of scanners, and then having to save it somewhere, drag it here, drag it there. But now, with the software, if we can get them to just take pics, they all know how to do that. If they could just take a picture of that document and then hit add, it makes it very easy for almost any age. Because, even some of the retirees, they know how to take a pic and send it to their grandkids. It has forced us to do some things like that, which in our mind, on a business side, on the tax side of things, we've been wanting to do this for several years. It's been slower than we wanted and this has accelerated it for us.

Tony Mauro: I find it interesting too, I've actually spent on a personal level, probably just as much or more, because I'm a big, the people that know me, a big wine guy and so I like to drink wine. I like to collect wine. I like everything about it. Well, I remember when the fires happened in 2017 in Napa and everybody was caught out there, and they lost a lot. Now, the wineries have gotten out ahead of it and saying, "We're doing virtual tastings." I've been on a lot of them.

Marc: Really?

Tony Mauro: And virtual cooking.

Marc: Interesting. See, that, I have a hard time with, because it's like, how are you supposed to know what it... You can't taste it.

Tony Mauro: Well, you have the wine or they'll sell you some wine ahead of time. And then, you get on with the wine maker, and just like you were there, you're tasting the same wines, you're talking about them.

Marc: Oh, okay, okay. So, they're sending it to you.

Tony Mauro: Yes, yes.

Marc: Okay, interesting. But, if you hate it, I guess you're stuck with it, right?

Tony Mauro: You are. I mean, you have to be into it [crosstalk 00:08:42].

Marc: Got to be a little picky. Yeah, understand what you're getting into. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, yeah, we're seeing it like it was virtual tours of museums, and zoos, and all these kind of... Since there's nobody in the zoos, they're now going around with the different cameras and whatnot, and they're filming the animals, and then letting kids and adults as well take virtual tours of the zoo. All that's great, I think, to have really helped. But at the same time, it's also like the part of you, depending on your age, I'm sure as well, but it's like, no, this is not what life's supposed to be.

Marc: We've got to turn that corner and get back to doing... And maybe there's some positives, like we will learn to not sardine each other in everything. Like, maybe the airlines, they're talking of taking out some chairs, not cramming as many people into as they can just to increase the dollar amount, I guess, of what you're making per flight, or what you're making per restaurant, or whatever type of thing. Maybe there'll be some nice benefits from that. I think, at the same time, as humans, we're still social creatures. We still want to be around other folks and see other things. Even if you're a bit of a home body or people going into public places sometimes causes you stress, I think we all still miss a level of that.

Tony Mauro: I do too. I really do. The thing I miss the most, with my wife and I, is at going out to dinner, which we generally would do every weekend. We've done a lot of takeout, try to help local restaurants, but it's just not the same. It's not the same ambiance, and there's the social aspect of it, yes, is missing bad. I'm not a guy that goes out, does a lot of mall shopping.

Marc: Yeah, I'm not a big partier, but there's like a weird disconnect isn't it? It's like a strange feeling to go, "Well, I'm going to go to Lowe's to get some stuff," but then you go and you think, "Well, now I feel bad because I went to Lowe's and I probably shouldn't." It's like there's this weird disconnect in the whole thing. Hopefully, we'll be seeing the elimination of that or the scale down of that, which we're starting to see already.

Marc: We're taping this, folks, here, right here at the beginning of May. So, let me also go ahead and say happy Mother's Day coming up here shortly. I think, we're going to put this podcast out about two days or so before Mother's Day. So, happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. Thank you for all you do. But yeah, it's the beginning of May, so we're beginning to see some phase down. We're also seeing a lot of unrest around the country. It's going to be interesting the next, I think, another four to six weeks, it's going to be really interesting to see how our country, as a whole, starts to react pocket by pocket, because every area is a little bit different. It'll be certainly interesting, and I'm glad that you guys are doing well. Anything else that we should touch on this quick episode? You've been talking with clients. How's clients been overall? They've been concerned with everything that's been happening or feeling pretty good, because they knew they had a good plan in place with you, or how's that been going?

Tony Mauro: Our small business clients, for the most part, I think it's been really eye opening for them, because while they have most of their financial affairs in order, one thing that many, and even on the individual side as well, don't have the necessary emergency funds in place. I've been shocked, even at the small businesses, most of them haven't had but maybe two weeks worth of bills set aside. In other words, monthly expenses set aside. Of course, this is an unprecedented event, but we all should be, and even on the individual side, the old financial planning adage of getting an emergency fund, that three to six months worth of expenses sure would be very handy, especially if you've been laid off. Hopefully, it's only going to be a month, month and a half here. I think clients in this city and in Iowa are worried, but they're pretty positive that they're going to get back to work pretty quick.

Tony Mauro: The stories are starting to come out now of people that have been laid off that may not be able to return. Their jobs may be eliminated and whatnot, and they're looking at a rough patch. And so, I think a lot of them at least have woken up to the fact that, I need to start planning a little better.

Marc: Well, what we do when we do the podcast [inaudible 00:12:59], Tony, is we talk a lot about planning. We talk a lot about the various different things to take into account, whether it's business tax planning, personal tax planning, retirement planning, all those things we go through. I think, hopefully, people will start to learn and start to move more. I mean, obviously, the market doing what it did in March and early April certainly... Especially early March was really a lot of the heavy falling. Interestingly enough though, April finished with one of the better Aprils than it's ever had in that rad?

Tony Mauro: [crosstalk 00:13:29].

Marc: I think people, they missed that piece, because there's so many other things went on. March was so, obviously, super bad, but then it was... What was it? I think it was 28% or something like that for April.

Tony Mauro: Yeah, very, very, close to that.

Marc: Yeah. That's an encouraging sign as well. So hopefully, we'll start to pull these things back together. But if you do have those questions, you do have those concerns, you haven't taken some action, or you haven't followed through on some steps or whatever, as always, Tony and the team are here to help. Obviously, they've been swamped, but they are here to help. Whether you're an existing client, you already know that, or if you're been listening to our podcast and thinking about reaching out to them, you can. Just let them know that you need to talk and they'll help you out.

Marc: You can go to yourplanningpros.com, that's yourplanningpros.com. While you're there, you can subscribe to the podcast, Playing With The Tax Man, on Apple, or Google, or Spotify, or whatever platform you choose. Or you could just call them as well. If you have questions or concerns, before you take any action, you should always talk to a qualified professional like Tony and his team at Tax Doctor Inc, (844) 707-7381, that's (844) 707-7381. I guess, with that, we'll wrap up this week's podcast. I'm glad that we were able to get back together and talk. I know we're going to do another one here in a couple of weeks. So, you guys stay safe, you stay sane, and we'll look forward to seeing you soon.

Tony Mauro: All right, sounds good, Mark. Thank you.

Marc: Thanks, Tony. I appreciate you folks. Make sure, again, you subscribe to the show. We'll see you here again soon on Plan With The Tax Man, with Tony Mauro of Tax Doctor Inc. We'll see you next time.

It is no secret that our financial plan will shift and change throughout our lives. However, this is even more prevalent the closer we get to retirement. Tony will discuss the different retirement planning stages and what the focus should be when you hit these checkpoints.

Important Links

Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

Call: 844-707-7381

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Mark: Hey everybody, welcome into this edition of Plan With The Tax Man, with [Tony Mauro 00:00:00:04]. Mark and I... I am Mark. Mark and Tony here talking about investing, finance and retirement. How are you doing bud?

We talk all the time about how people need to give their dollars purpose or set goals for their retirement and even specifically for certain investments. But let’s dive deeper into what different goals look like for various folks approaching retirement. How do you determine if a goal is realistic or out of reach? We’ll tackle that conversation with plenty of examples on this episode.

Important Links

Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

Call: 844-707-7381

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Welcome into this edition of Plan With The Tax Man. We appreciate your time, as always, while we talk about investing, finance and retirement here on the podcast. Tony, my friend, how are you?

Most people like to think that they always make decisions based on logic and facts, but the truth is that emotions usually play a role for all of us in the decision-making process...

Important Links

Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

Call: 844-707-7381

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Speaker 1:

A lot of financial professionals say things that just aren’t true. And it’s not that they’re intentionally trying to mislead, it’s just that they’ve been trained to use certain talking points, which they might even believe to be true themselves. Let’s talk about the statements you should be cautious of if you hear them from a financial advisor.

Important Links

Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

Call: 844-707-7381

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome in to Playing With the Tax Man. Thanks so much for tuning into our podcast this week as we talk about investing, finance and retirement. As usual with Tony Mauro. Tony, buddy, what's going on? How are you?

Of course, we all want a healthy bank account. Having a good amount of dollars within easy grasp is helpful in the case of emergencies or for medium-sized purchases where you don’t want to have to liquidate assets. But is it counterproductive to have too much cash on hand? We’ll explore that idea and other pressing questions about the role that cash plays in financial and retirement planning.

Important Links

Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

Call: 844-707-7381

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome in to Plan With The Tax Man. Thanks for tuning into our podcast. As always, with Tony Mauro talking about all things investing, finance, retirement, taxes, all that good stuff here on the show. As always, we appreciate your time. And Tony, buddy, what's going on? How are you?

Speaker 1: Right.

Not everything goes smoothly in your financial life. We’ll look at some negative circumstances that many retirees and pre-retirees face and help you find the silver lining in the midst of tough situations.

Important Links

Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

Call: 844-707-7381

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Speaker 1: Once again here on the podcast with Tony Mauro, as we're talking about investing, finance and retirement here on Plan with the Tax Man. And, Tony, hello. How are you, my friend?

Myths, rumors, and misunderstandings are pervasive in the world of Social Security. On this show, we’ll look to clear up the top 5 misunderstandings about Social Security.

Important Links

Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com

Call: 844-707-7381

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Transcript Of Today's Show:

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, welcome into another edition of Plan With The Tax Man. Thanks for checking out our podcast. As always with Tony and myself. Tony, what's going on buddy? How are you?