'Cause you know, somebody said that money can't buy you happiness, but being broke can't buy you happiness either. So not realizing that you've got a big pile of cash sitting in your house that you can tap into is something that can inhibit people from, I don't want to say happiness, but having options. Money doesn't buy you happiness, but it does buy you options.

Some smart investors who plan ahead can easily hit the one million dollar mark. I know it sounds like a lot of money when you first start out, but you can hit the one million dollar mark in your 401(k)s, but the truth is, most of us don't have the time or patience to learn all the strategies that you need to get there.

You cannot get a second opinion from the same person who gave you the first!

But one thing we do know, is that there is gonna be a hike in our debt. And, when we see that happen, it's going to basically negate some of the plans that the government had to really create stimulus. So, the plan is estimated to add about one trillion dollars to the debt burden that was already slated to grow, due to rising expenditures from an aging population.

70% of people, people already collecting Social Security, they're actually going to see that increase. Because what happened over the past couple years. There were small cost of living adjustments, where typically people were playing about approximately $109 a month. So, 2017 Medicare cost $134, well in 2018, it's also going to cost $134. However, that 2% increase that people are getting from Social Security, is going to be eaten up by that increase in Medicare premiums by, on average, $26.

Over 40% more people now have mortgages heading into their 60s. Sometimes that's something that keeps them from hanging up the cleats, if you will. We have sat down with a client recently where that happened to we're just talking about that. Plus, how to utilize the equity in the house, where you talk about, there's a line of credit structure.

Required Minimum Distributions: a required minimum distribution, that's something when you turn age 70 and a half in the United States, you're typically required to take money out of your traditional IRA or 401(k), some type of retirement plan that you have set up other than a Roth IRA. Why can that derail your retirement? Because people might not realize that it's taxed as income and what effect would that have on you is twofold. Are you ready?

It's that time of the year to start to understand that and to start itemize that, figure that out, and start to create those bullet points and those areas that you want to focus on as we rap of 2017 and look towards 2018.

The news is conversation about the proposed tax changes and what's going to take place, what will I do, what do the changes mean?

There's also a lot of misinformation out there today. The government has made some changes that Bret will address related to the benefit choices that you can take with Social Security. But there still are some election choices that are available that people that don't think that ... both financial advisors, financial professionals, and consumers think that they're completely gone, and that's not true. So there's still some avenues available where you can end up maximizing that benefit.