The show starts with a little, “Get To Know Victor,” segment. Find out how he is connected to the hit trilogy: Pitch Perfect.
Then, Baby Boomers are often the talk of this show. But what should Generation X be doing to prepare for retirement?
Finally, the show wraps up with a little segment called “Man or Woman 😉 ) on the Street!” Victor answers questions directly from people on the street.
Click here to watch Victor’s latest appearance on PIX11 News
Sound advice for holiday shoppers worried about shortages and high pricesfeaturing Financial Advisor Victor Medina on NY1 News
Click here to receive your Free Elder Law Guide!
Also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, & Google Podcasts
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.
Full Transcription Below
Mark Elliot: Maybe you’ve heard Victor’s radio show before. So you’ve heard him, have you seen him? Victor, you’re probably on billboards all over the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas, right? New York City, you’re there. Times Square.
Victor Medina: I think today’s billboards are probably on our YouTube channel. I think that’s the only thing that anyone’s staring at these days. I don’t know anyone who’s looking at billboards any longer.
Mark: What I will say, though, is people might have seen you as the local director of the a capella group.
Victor: Oh, my goodness.
Mark: [laughs]
Victor: You didn’t warn me that you’re going to embarrass me this way off of it.
One of the things that I do for fun is that I’m the musical director of a local a capella group, which is great. What we do for fun is every Wednesday, we start singing at 7:30 at somebody’s house in the area. Everyone’s from general Mercer County, New Jersey area.
We meet at somebody’s house at 7:30. We sing from 7:30 to 10:00. Then we drink wine and eat cheese until we get kicked out of that person’s house from 10 o’clock on.
It’s really a cover for being able to hang out with some great people, and I have the privilege of leading talented musicians. It’s a lot of fun.
Mark: I will tell you, one of my favorite movies of all time ‑‑ and there’s three of them ‑‑ “Pitch Perfect,” Anna Kendrick. That’s what you do, isn’t it?
Victor: The interesting thing is that the musical director that was on, this guy’s name’s Deke Sharon, who actually went to my college at Tufts University, New England Conservatory of Music, and somebody that I knew personally.
He’s somebody that sent arrangements to my a capella group called Jersey Transit, which is a cool connection that that music made it to Hollywood movie level. They had TV shows called the “Sing‑Off.” It’s kind of cool to watch somebody that I went to college with turn that into something that’s almost mainstream accepted.
Mark: Yeah, absolutely. That’s cool. That’s what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to get to know Victor a little bit. I think it’s important, that we do a radio show, we’re talking about retirement, we’re talking about some of the challenges, some of the what‑ifs, what if this happens, what if that happens, how are we going to handle it.
What about the fun stuff we’re going to do? How do we do all of this? We get bogged down into, “Well, it’s really all about the money.” It’s not. It’s really about, what is your plan? What are you going to do to enjoy your retirement? How are you going to do it? What’s your prefect day in retirement?
A lot of it though, is if you’re going to talk to somebody about your retirement, your hard earned money for 20, 30, 40, 50 years in the workforce, and say, “Hey, I want you to help me with my retirement,” you need to know a little bit something about them. I don’t think you’re just going to go to a stranger on the street and say, “Here. Here’s my retirement 401(k) and IRA. Can you help me in my retirement?”
No. You got to know a little bit about them. This is a fun segment, Victor, because we’re going to get to know a little about Victor Medina. Start with a little bit about your background and how did you get involved in the financial business? You certainly started in the law area first before getting into the retirement world. What’s your background?
Victor: I did exactly that. After going to college, I worked for a little while, had a job working in the pharmaceutical industry. Then I went back to law school.
I was mostly driven by my wife, who’s wonderful. What she said to me is, “Look, you’re reasonably intelligent but if you don’t get an advanced degree people are going to think that you’re full of it for the rest of your life.” I owe her thanks for pushing me to go to professional school.
I went and got a law degree, did what traditional people do, going into law school, meaning that, I went to go clerk for a judge and work for a large law firm, and did a lot of corporate‑related work. That’s where the money was.
Then there’s something deeply unsatisfying about that. I was working for corporations and not for people. In a fit of entrepreneurial spirit, I left that job and started a firm where we were going to focus on estate planning.
I did that mostly because I had a family member who suffered an untimely death. He was early. They’d done some estate planning. Thought they had everything in order and it turns out it was a big disaster. It was not malpractice. It was common practice on the way the estate planning was done.
It gave me an opportunity to the way that we were going to do estate planning whether we’re going to be partners with people all the way through the rest of their lives. We made sure that plans work when we needed them. We tested them along the way.
We completely changed the way that estate planning was practiced. Based on the fact that I had this family member, have something that I knew that he wouldn’t want to happen to his family. We started doing that differently because of that.
What we were doing with people on an annual basis, we were establishing deep and long‑term relationships where it wasn’t around the paper, but around the plan. That gave me an opportunity to start to be in a position of trust with them where they would seek my opinion on things. Lots of different things.
Not because I was a lawyer, but because they knew that I cared about them. I was invested in their family’s success. One of those areas was about finances. For the longest time, maybe the first six, seven years of their practice, they would ask me about their investments and say, “Can you help me with this?”
“What do you think about it? We really like you, and we trust you. We want to make sure that we’re OK. I want my family to work with you. Can you manage our investments or help us with a retirement plan?”
For a longest time, I would say, “No. I don’t have those credentials, I can’t do that for you. I try to put you in the right hands.” What I found was that about 50 percent of my clients were being successful. Not working with somebody that was an expert in the area.
I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “You know what, you’re not meeting the expectations of your clients. You’re letting them down. They came to you to make sure that they were going to be OK.”
What we did is then go ahead and create the sister company that handles retirement planning. I own that completely. It’s not a relationship where we send you to somebody that we have a relationship with. It’s here. It’s all in house, it’s with the exactly the same team that you’re dealing with for your estate planning, you’re dealing with for your retirement planning.
I went and got all the credentials. I got more letters, Mark, after my name than are in my name.
The idea is to be able to do that the right way for clients and that’s how I got started.
Mark: If you want to find out more about the law groups side, go to medinalawgroup.com, M‑E‑D‑I‑N‑A, medinalawgroup.com, Palante Wealth is P‑A‑L‑A‑N‑T‑E, palantewealth.com.
You can find out about both companies, but they work under one umbrella. They’re all here to help you. I wonder, your wife Jennifer is a school psychologist. Do you think she did a little psychology work on you, thinking, “You know what? I can make my husband a better man. If I can get him to law school, he can take better care of my kids.” Did she use some psychology, do you think?
Victor: I’d hate to ascribe that much manipulation and forethought. I would rather think that she insulted me to do it, which is what she did. Maybe she did know what the ultimate result was going to be if she tweaked it one way or the other.
Mark: All right, so tell me your, I guess, growing up. Finances, were they a big part of the family? I’m sure you went to private school. You went into the limousine. You sat in the back. Got dropped off at first grade. It was an easy upbringing.
Victor: [laughs] It’s funny. No, of course, it’s the opposite. They were important, but they were important for reasons why…are very real and understandable people, but it wasn’t something like we were sitting on a whole bunch of money.
I was raised with financially savvy folks. The biggest and most impactful early introduction to finances was essentially when my parents ended up getting divorced. I was living with my mom, she didn’t have enough money to make it where she was at and ended up taking me back to Puerto Rico, to live with her and her family for a while.
Ended up having to declare bankruptcy for what was going on and start over. Look, it’s a wonderful story in the sense that after having married and met my stepdad, she’s got multiple properties. She’s retired with an apartment in New York City, a really successful story.
Nobody ever trained her or taught her on the concepts of finances. I’ve taken that lesson. By the way, it’s something that’s crucially important, even one of the books I authored is called, “Empowering Women,” specifically in retirement, empowering in retirement.
I took the lesson around my mom and said, “How is it that we can help serve these women that are either suddenly single or just weren’t the financially savvy person in the relationship?” If they got divorced or widowed, how do we serve them to make sure that they’re getting the right advice?
The book is one of the ways that we’re able to do that. The earliest lesson on finances was watching my mom struggle and realizing that as I was going to make my own family, and being able to be responsible for supporting them, I want to make sure that I avoided similar mistakes or struggles. Got sophisticated and thinking about it, and doing things the right way.
Mark: You think about now as a parent, you and Jennifer have three boys, Aiden 17, Lucas 14, Dylan 8. They’re at different stages. Aiden is getting ready. One more year of high school, then go off to college if that’s what his choice is. Lucas getting ready for high school. Dylan just graduated from middle school. No…
[crosstalk]
Victor: Second grade still for him.
Mark: Lucas got out of middle school as he moves on into the junior high level. You think about them because I’m thinking for…Your wife’s a school psychologist, you’re an attorney, but you’re a certified financial planner as well. Finances were always something hard to talk about, it seemed to me growing up.
I never heard much about money. My dad was a college coach. My mom was a schoolteacher, then worked for a bank. We didn’t talk. I knew I got all the sporting stuff because my dad was a coach at a college.
I got new footballs, new basketballs, new baseballs. It was perfect for me growing up, but it wasn’t like we had a lot of money. We didn’t take a lot of trips or anything. How important is teaching your kids about finances?
Victor: It’s essential. It’s one of those areas that they probably ought to be adding into school‑related topics, much more than physics.
Mark: Would it be cool if they taught what you talk about, to actually had classes like that? How to think about finances? I don’t…
[crosstalk]
Victor: Never happened for me. Did it happen for you?
Mark: No, not at all.
Victor: It’s important to do it. To your point, even if you have some level of money that’s in there, it’s very difficult conversation to have with your kids. You go back and forth between one of these two positions, Mark, either you don’t have a lot.
The last thing you want to do to your kids is make them be the worriers about where security is going to be coming from in the future. That’s not anything you want to saddle them with.
You have a ton and the last thing you want them to do is become complacent about either work ethic or what it took to get there. You’re in this no man’s land for trying to figure out how to have these discussions, but they’re important discussions to have. There are discussions that I’ve had with each of my kids, specifically, the two older ones.
The youngest one is always listening and always offering comments from the peanut gallery. The older two are interesting examples for me because I’ve learned two things from each of them, or how successful I’ve had these financial conversations.
Aiden’s got a job as a lifeguard, and by the way, great job for high school kid, to be sitting at the pool, getting a tan and swimming and looking good but he works and he gets his paycheck and he’s now driving. He’s responsible for his own gas.
We’ve got a lot of stuff in there. He tells me, this is after I’m trying to go, “Hey, listen, your savings rate is important if you want to retire, if you want to have a nest egg. The more that you put aside…”
He’s the guy that comes to me and says, “Look, this is what I want you to do, help me manage this. Dad, help me manage…” which I think is great. “I’m going to take everything in the hundreds level off of that paycheck and I’m going to give it to you to invest. I’m going to spend what’s in the tens and the twenties.”
I thought, “My goodness, that’s a lesson well landed on this kid,” that instead of giving me the tens and the ones spot, he was giving me the hundreds spot off of it. He understood the value of a savings rate and why that was important for him. I knew that was like I had landed, that one was successful.
Then, with Lucas, is the middle one. He’s 14. He’s now of age to work. The first thing he’s thinking about is, “How and where do I get a job?” He’s thinking about getting his working papers and it’s not that we’re sending a lot to the fields to get working early.
What’s important about discussing finances is the value of what labor is to generate money. That’s such an important lesson to know. There’s a spectrum on this about what you’re going to work at, how much you’re going to get compensated for, what the value of your effort is off of that, and then eventually, how you increase that over time.
The one that is got his designs on following in dad’s footsteps, the clearest, at least, the way he’s communicating, is my middle son, Lucas. He wants to go to Tufts the way I went to Tufts. He wants to go to law school. He wants to have a financial degree. He wants to come and work in the business.
What he sees in that is a road that he wants to emulate, because we’ve been able to show him that it’s got a lot of benefits for him. The lesson on finances is, work hard and understand what the value of your labor is.
Hopefully, this other part of it, I hope he gets. I know it to be true for what we do, but I hope he understands that we’re delivering immense value to families. What we do for a living is transform their lives and give them security in retirement. I think he wants to be a part of that.
I like those elements. With the eight‑year‑old, Mark, we’re not sure. We’ll see how he turns out. The first two so, I’ve gotten Hall of Fame Numbers so far.
Mark: The financial retirement business is important. Victor and the teams at Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth are not only working to improve your retirement life, but they’re also assisting with important decisions about the family as well.
Whether that’s estate and legacy planning, helping to establish trust with an attorney, or long‑term care planning. There are a lot of things that impact the other members of the family.
When you work with Medina Law Group, with Palante Wealth, it’s a big family. They’re all here to help support. We know that there are challenges. There’s going to be some of those, what‑if situations, that happen. How do we handle this, “Holy cow, we are getting ready to start our beautiful retirement. Now, all of a sudden my spouse has Alzheimer’s. We’ve got cancer.”
We can think of all those things we don’t want to, but it’s life. The important thing is you have a plan that is built for the what‑ifs, but it’s also there in place where you put your head on the pillow at night and say, “You know what? When I wake up tomorrow, I’m going to be fine.”
We’re thinking we got things moving in the right direction. How do you do that if you’ve never worked in the retirement world? That’s where Victor’s company has come in to help you do that. It’s about you. You’re the CEO. It’s your retirement. It’s your hopes and dreams.
Victor’s team is, basically, your CFO, your Chief Financial Officer to help you understand the things that you don’t and to make sure that you make the right decision according to you. At the end of the day, it’s your final decision. Victor can help walk you down this path.
I don’t know why you wouldn’t take advantage. There’s no cost. There’s no obligation. There’s no pressure to chat with the team. That’s 856‑506‑8300. 856‑506‑8300. Great opportunity. Take advantage. 856‑506‑8300.
Mark: Glad you’re with us today for “Make It Last” with Victor Medina of the Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth. You can find out more about the Medina Law Group. If you got questions about, maybe you need a certified elder law attorney, Victor and the team, they can help you with that certainly.
You think about estate planning and legacy planning and all the moving parts and boy, they’re talking about changing some of the estate tax things and all these kinds of things, a lot of moving parts here. The Medina Law Group can, certainly, help you in that area. It’s medinalawgroup.com, if you’d like to find out more, M‑E‑D‑I‑N‑A, medinalawgroup.com.
Then, in Victor’s other company, Palante Wealth, that’s the holistic planning side for your retirement. The investment strategies, income, taxes, how do we plan for all of that? What if we do need long‑term care, we have a health issue, how does that all play into this? That is palantewealth.com, to find out more, P‑A‑L‑A‑N‑T‑E, palantewealth.com.
Glad you’re with us today. Victor, would you say it’s fair to say…We’ve done this show now for several months, but you think about it, we typically are talking baby boomers, would that be fair to say?
Victor: Absolutely. Since it’s the year 2015 or 2016, there’s like 10,000 of them turning 65 every day for the next 30 years. It’s been our main focus.
Mark: You think about it, that’s the generation retiring right now. There was the greatest generation from 1901 to 1927, the silent generation, 1928 to 1945, the baby boomers, and I’m in that category, 1946 to 1964 is when you’re born. I was born in ’59.
That means everybody that born in 1959, in the year 2021, will be Social Security eligible, turning 62 in 2021. Here’s a stat about this. Think about this, all the baby boomers, the youngest baby boomers, by the year 2030, will all be at least 65 years of age. That means what generation is next when it comes to retirement planning? That is probably your generation.
Victor: That’s mine. I was going to say, Generation X, we’re always the forgotten one.
Mark: 1965 to 1980. That is Gen X. When you think about all the moving parts before we get in because we’re going to spend the next couple segments talking about Generation X. What should you be doing as you get ready?
You think about it, born in 1965 to 1980, which means the oldest are turning 56 this year. The youngest will be turning 41 this year. The age bracket of Generation X is basically 40 to 56 years of age. We’re going to talk. You’re right on deck. Your retirement is coming faster maybe than you even realize.
You think about all of the baby boomers that went off into retirement and rode off into the sunset. I’m thinking the number was something like a million and a half. Don’t hold me to the numbers, they are ballpark.
About a million and a half baby boomers retired in 2019. Over three million retired or left the workforce in 2020. Those challenges. Those aren’t the reasons where we see companies and small businesses needing employees, I don’t think. When you lose that many people from the workforce, what does that do to our economy?
Victor: That’s a big one. First of all, those folks that were on the retirement, were the people that were typically the most highly skilled of the workers. They’re leaving a void if it hasn’t been properly filled.
You look at what the impact on the economy is going to be, it’s twofold. There’s one positive, and there’s one negative. The one that’s negative is that we’ve had this skills drain that’s occurred as more of these people have gotten retired.
I think that the pandemic probably caused a few more than average to make an earlier decision. Say, “I’m just not going back.” I have a client of mine that was in education and just realized when it happened in March, “That’s it. I’m done. I’m not going back in September.” It was completely unplanned. I think that there is that effect off of it.
I think that the positive effect that’s in there is that we get the opportunity to have innovation and new thinking draw and push things in a new direction. It’s probably stuff that weren’t as anticipated before. It’s not to say that we can group all these people by age and label them with one thought over another, but we see all of these advances in more technologically‑based solutions for stuff.
Whether we’re talking about electric vehicles or looking at what’s going on with different services that can be provided or how people are going to work remotely, those kinds of innovations are coming from people that are challenging the status quo that they have been in the workforce, expecting things to stay the same for a long time.
What’s important about that, from a retirement planning perspective, regardless of what generation you’re in, is that you really have to have a forward thinking plan that doesn’t rely on the same old, same old being there forever.
The same kind of cautionary tale about relying on the biggest blue chips of stocks to be there forever is going to be the same as we watched the changeover occur because the baby boomers were the biggest of the generations that were making this transition. So, we’re going to see the biggest effect occur as those people get out of the workforce, just by growing older.
Mark: It certainly puts more stress on Social Security, Medicare, and those government programs, certainly with so many baby boomers, 10,000 of them turning 65 every day. Basically, who knows how many are retiring every single day.
Now we’re going to focus on Generation X, Victor’s generation. Victor, I’m going to have you speak for your generation, because we know they’re all the same, but that’s really not true about any generation, is it? Think about this, you’re 40 at the youngest edge of the Generation X, born in 1980. You’re going to be either turning 41 this year, you’ve already done it or you will be.
Then the oldest are 55, turning 56 this year. You think about that. That means that really the oldest Generation Xers are really getting close to retirement. Maybe it snuck up on them a little bit.
Are you sitting down with more of Generation X people, pre‑retirees now than certainly you were five years ago? Obviously, I would think. But are you seeing more Generation X come in to talk about retirement?
Victor: We are. It’s actually happening two different ways, Mark. I think the first way it’s happening is that we have been dealing with ostensibly what are their parents having already retired. Understanding the smart decisions that we’ve helped their parents make about getting into a sound retirement plan, and because of that, wanting to have a conversation a little bit earlier, maybe than even they anticipated.
May not be that they’re looking at retirement per se but they know that good retirement planning starts early. We’ve been helping their parents, their parents will make a referral over. They’ll want to meet with us, and we’ll start to talk to them. That’s one way that we’ve been able to see more Gen X people.
I think the other thing that is also true is that Generation X, basically people that are 56‑ish or so, 41, in that 15‑year range, are looking at retirement as something that they have to grab by the horns, that is not going to be planned for them.
There’s enough information going out there, especially because of the vast number of baby boomers retiring, and all of the things that you’ve mentioned about, the stress, potentially, in Social Security and this idea that they know by having been in the workforce now for almost 20 years, that there is no magic pension waiting for them at the end.
That they’ve got to do some preplanning on this. They’ve got to go ahead and understand what it is that’s going to happen for them in their retirement. If you’re in Generation X, you’re probably thinking about, “How am I going to be OK once I get into retirement? Maybe I need to start thinking about this beforehand. It’s no longer something that I can ignore towards the end.”
There’s been enough information shared with you to know that the sooner that you start thinking about this, the sooner you start doing some savings starting with some smarter investing, the better off you’re going to be at the end. You’ve got to take control of it on your own. I’m seeing it from both ends. I’m seeing it. The natural outgrowth of our clients having their kids come and see us.
Also, I think this raising of awareness amongst people who say, it’s not something that you can avoid, it’s actually coming around the corner.
Even at my age at 46 until the youngest of the Generation X, 41. I mean, you can’t help but see that big, oncoming train that you can’t avoid, meaning that you have to plan for your own retirement if you’re going to want to have a chance of being successful at it.
Mark: You think about it. If you’re going to sit down and talk with somebody…We talk about this all the time. I think it’s a pretty good analogy is that when you have kids, they go to the pediatric doctor or they walk to the general practitioner.
As you get older, you get to my age at 61. I had a stent put in my heart, I obviously was seeing the cardiologist. We get a little bit more specific with our healthcare as we age. It’s the same thing that should happen in the financial world.
A lot of times people don’t change. I’ve had somebody that worked with since they were 35 and they’re like, they’re fantastic, but they’re not retirement planners. Here’s my plea to you Generation Xers, that one of the best times to sit down with somebody and talk about retirement is when you have time on your side.
If you’re 10 years out, what a great time. Think how good your plan can be by the time you actually pull the plug on retirement, and maybe you’re 55 or 56 going, “Well, I want to retire at 60.” That means you’re down to five years or less yet.
The idea is to get to talk to somebody that works in the retirement world that can help you in this area of planning. That’s Victor and the team at Palante Wealth. 856‑506‑8300, great time to start is right now. 856‑506‑8300. There’s no cost for this.
Of course, Medina Law Group, Palante Wealth serves the Pennington, the greater Mercer County areas, as well as Bucks County. Victor has clients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. They’re here to help. They don’t know if they can help you through, so give them call. 856‑506‑8300.
Let’s say the mid‑50 Generation Xers or the 50‑year‑olds because now, we’re in our 50s and we are maybe starting to think about retirement. What would your advice be to that age group of Generation X?
Victor: There are two things that we will have them focus on. The first is as you cross into the magical over 50 years off of it, you get to be able to save a little bit extra money, have some catch‑up contributions you can make. You want to make a good assessment on the distance you need to cover between where you are right now and what you’re going to need in retirement.
In fact, that’s one of the best things that we can help people figure out. If you’re in a position of not knowing what your number is, or what your number could be based on some savings that you can do, and some projections off of that. We can help you answer that question.
We can help you get into a position where you understand what steps you need to take between right now and when you eventually want to retire.
The first thing is that you have expanded options because as you turn over 50, you can make some catch‑up contributions. By the way, you probably want some smart advice on how to handle taxes off of that.
Sometimes that means not always putting it into an IRA, but thinking about other savings that you want to do. Some of the best products that are available to help you with your planning take time in order for them to reach their fullest potential for you and your retirement plan.
If you start that in the 50s, which, by the way, often means that you are younger, more insurable, healthier, all of those things are in place. If you start that while you’re at that point in time, you probably have a better menu of options that are available for you. That’s probably another element of what people in the mid‑50s ought to be thinking about.
The other thing that I would have people focus on with these next 10 to 15 years is kind of get a sharp pencil on what their budget is going to look like in retirement.
What has happened for a lot of people that are in their 50s, is they’ve just gotten off, completing any college funding for their kids, all of this money has been piled at the door, and they have been chasing those dollars to just service all the needs that they have. Very few people have this incredible savings rate.
Now that we’ve ended that, it’s often a marker when you’re just at that point where you put the last kid through or stopped contributing to this last child for whatever their living expenses are, you fully launched them. You have to make sure that you don’t take up the space of those dollars in with spending on your own.
One of the most instrumental numbers that determine financial success in retirement is your savings rate. I want to make sure that I’m clear about that. It’s not about the balance that you start with in retirement. They’ve got a ton of research around this. It’s not whether you have a million dollars versus two million dollars, whatever else.
It’s really what your savings rate was relative to your income. The reason why that becomes important is that as you get into retirement, your habits in around money being saving, making sure that you’re spending within a budget, and understanding what that is, the longer you can make that money last in retirement.
The closer you get to not living and spending on everything that you’re making, the better chances you have.
In these last 10 to 15 years where you’re finally kind of clear of the hurdle a little bit, and you’ve got these extra dollars, getting into the habit of understanding what that budget needs to look like, and spending the next 10 to 15 years, really understanding that and getting a clearer picture of what that’s going to look like when you actually stop getting a paycheck in, and you have to manufacture your own.
That’s definitely what you should be doing with these 10 to 15 years because the clearer you can get on that, the better you can get your savings rate for those purposes, the more you’ll be able to live wonderfully as you get into retirement.
Mark: All right, let’s talk about the other part of that Generation X. Now, Generation X was born 1965 to 1980, meaning the youngest are 40 turning 41 this year, the oldest are 55 turning 56 this year. That was your advice to the 50‑something Generation X.
What about the 40‑somethings which they might be right in the midst of raising a family and doing all of that and their hair’s on fire? Is it too early to start thinking about retirement?
Victor: I don’t think it’s too early to start thinking about retirement. If we want to go back to your analogy from before, I think that people know that they have to consider something like a heart condition that was in their family, that their parents waited too long to take care of their health. They might be seeing the cardiologist much earlier than when the actual need comes.
This would be the same smart planning because one of the things that’s more present for the folks that are in their 40s is stress and lack of potential social security benefits is what they got. If you start looking at the way the trust funds been funding Social Security, we’ve got people that are already on it, and people coming into it that are totally fully funded.
In order to make this thing last, especially, when we start thinking about the way that we’re going to have to pay for all of the tax credits that were given as part of the pandemic, you’re going to see that one of the avenues that they routinely use to make sure that Social Security is a concept lasts.
They don’t have it run bankrupt or anything like that, as they start extending the age before you can start to claim it. People in the 40s, like me, are going to be the first generation because we don’t vote as often as the older people in the voting block.
They’re not going to come up and raise their arms and start riding. Those folks are, I suppose, in this mid‑40s, are going to, probably, lower overall Social Security benefit relative to our contributions, but also probably a longer start time.
All of what that means is, we’ve got to self‑insure our retirement. We have to go ahead and be our own savings bank, be not relying on Social Security.
Generate the income, if it’s a number that’s going to come to us and maybe a smaller number starting later than we expected, which means we have this time, the time that it’s in between your 40s and when you reach your 60s to go ahead and compensate for that by what we’re setting aside to create our own retirement income in there and not be relying on Social Security.
I really stressed that for a lot of folks, because the numbers are pretty clear about where the stressors are, to make this thing happen.
You realize there’s only a couple of levers that they can move. They can lower the overall benefit, and they can extend the age. That’s going to be one of those. They’re going to use one or both of those mechanisms in order to get this thing to continue.
The’re already done it, though, Mark. I’m not releasing new information about a strategy. This is exactly what they’ve done every time they face a challenge like this, we’re just going to have to see it one more time.
Mark: You think about all these moving parts if you think about it. You think of Victor’s company, Medina Law Group, they’re helping you with your estate planning. You think, “Well, I don’t really need Victor’s company until I’m probably in my 80s. That’s when I need to worry about that.”
What if you have a health issue before that? We don’t know what tomorrow holds. The idea is, we don’t want to be reactive because something happened, we want to be proactive.
This is a great opportunity for, especially, Generation X, because you do have a little bit of time on your hands, probably, for most of you. We’re seeing more and more people retire younger all the time. It’s time to start doing something about it. Maybe you’re not necessarily putting the plan, lock, stock, and barrel in place if you’re 45, but you’re getting an idea of where you are.
Maybe I’ve got, “Hey, I’ve got 15, 20 years to put myself in a better position.” What a great opportunity for you. Maybe, I would doubt if you understand all the moving parts of retirement.
Victor and his teams do because they do this day in and day out. What a great idea to get a head start. If you’re in your mid‑50s, it’s time to start getting serious about this planning part of retirement. 856‑506‑8300 is the number.
The team is here to help. They would love to help and answer any questions or concerns that you might have. 856‑506‑8300. No cost, no‑obligation, no pressure. 856‑506‑8300.
We’re talking to Generation X today on the program. If you’re already in that baby boomer generation and your retirement is even closer, there’s going to be some good advice for you as well when we come back. This is, Make It Last with Victor Medina.
Mark: Welcome back to Make It Last with Victor Medina of Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth. Those teams are here to help you with any retirement questions or legal questions when it comes to your estate that you have because the teams can help you come up with an income strategy. Got to replace those paychecks that are no longer coming in when you get into retirement, where’s your income coming from?
Investments, will your strategies change the older you get? Everybody’s situation is different. We always focus on that. Taxes, we know there’s tax changes coming. What’s your plan for that?
Estate, we know there are, maybe some possible estate tax planning changes. There’s a lot of moving parts teams here to help. It’s 856‑506‑8300. If you have any questions, 856‑506‑8300.
Today we’re talking about Generation X, born 1965 ‑ 1980, which means the youngest are 40, turning 41. This year, the oldest are 55, turning 56 in 2021. There’s already some 56‑year‑old Generation Xers. Victor’s a part of that group.
You think about this, we’ve talked about this some when we talked about the baby boomer generation, some of the challenges to that generation for retirement was being part of the sandwich generation. I’m thinking that’s going to be a factor for Generation X as well.
Can you explain what is the sandwich generation? Do you have clients you have to help in that situation?
Victor: Sure. Sandwich, so sandwich usually has got the meat in the middle and two pieces of bread on either side. What we have as our clients being the meat with bread on either side, they’re sandwiched between their parents and their kids.
Most notably, what they’re sandwiched doing is actually helping with their care. They get in a position where they’re still raising their kids, but because their parents are also getting older, they now have to have been responsible for their care into managing the finances, managing what care they need.
That sandwich generation was first introduced as a concept when we were having people kind of the baby boomers deal with the WW2, the greatest generation, and their parents going in.
What’s different now, though? It’s more interesting to a planner, I suppose is. The options for planning around how to care for an older parent are starting to shrink because all the rules that were in place that allowed us to take care and protect our assets are getting smaller, and smaller and smaller.
There’s all kinds of outside pressures for that, Mark. We’re seeing long‑term care insurance companies stop offering personal policies. We’re watching people who are able to qualify for Medicaid if they ran out of money, we’re watching those rules change.
When Gen Xers are in a position where they going to need to care for their parents, we see that there’s a lot of advantages to having to take care of planning ahead of time.
One of the reasons why we’re seeing this more and more exactly right now is the incidence of Alzheimer’s, is actually increasing at an alarming rate. A true Alzheimer’s…Everyone talks about dementia as being Alzheimer’s, but Alzheimer’s has a very specific diagnosis. It’s actually starting younger and younger.
Alzheimer’s as a dementia‑related condition is that time where we start to see people in their mid to late 60s, in the beginning, 70s, have this cognitive decline. Guess what? That’s exactly where our baby boomers are.
We started this changeover to age 65 a number of years ago. We have those people already turning into their 70s. They’re into their mid‑70s going forward. We do have the people exactly where they would start to first have these cognitive issues.
What’s important for people who are in that sandwich generation, where they’re taking care of parents, if you’re in a position where you’ve had a parent be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia‑related condition, or they’ve got Parkinson’s or something like that…
Mark, what’s important for folks like that, if you’re in that position, is that there are things that you can do to help protect their assets, save the home, and do things to make sure you’re managing their care, especially providing a great quality life for the other spouse, the one that’s healthy, but you have to get in front of it.
One of the things that we do is we actually offer a guide for people to download, to understand how to protect people’s wealth off of it, and we actually create a special website for that that you can go to. If you go to 920elderlaw.com, that’s 920elderlaw.com, you’ll be able to download this free guide that will help you understand how to make sure that your health changes don’t destroy your family’s wealth.
It is especially helpful, people in the sandwich generation, you can download it for your parents or you can just tell them that they need to download it. If you download that guide, it will help you understand what you need to start to do to help protect assets and increase your choices to maintain quality of life as you get older.
Mark: That is 920elderlaw.com. There’s no cost for this. You just download it. There you go. You got the information. 920elderlaw.com. Glad you’re with us today for Make It Last with Victor Medina. I’m Mark Elliot. We’re talking about Generation X.
You bring up healthcare and a lot of people think, “Well, Victor, once I get to 65, I don’t have to worry about my healthcare anymore because I got Medicare.” Medicare basically looks at if you’re going to get better, we’ll probably help you, if you’re not going to get better, we’re out.
When it comes to long‑term care, Medicare is not going to be a part of that which is where your Medicaid comes in. Talk about the healthcare part of this for Generation X. It’s hard. I remember being 20 and in college and thinking I’m never going to hit the age of 60. Here I am 61 going, “How did that happen?”
When we’re in our 40s and 50s and we’re in good health, and we can’t wait for things that are coming and our families growing and going, and doing, and all of those kinds of things. It’s hard to think about healthcare issues down the road. You said it earlier, “What a great time to plan is when you are in good health. If you want insurance to help, it’s a great time to get it.”
Talk a little bit about some of the challenges of healthcare and retirement. It’s probably the number one reason, probably the working families, but retired couples have to file for bankruptcy as they had a major healthcare incident and didn’t have any coverage for it.
Victor: Isn’t it sad and a travesty that was something like that that devastated their plans and that was completely uncontrolled by them. They didn’t know that they were going to have healthcare event, they certainly didn’t plan for it.
By the way, there’s probably not a lot they could have done to avoid something catastrophic like that that caused them to meet either…devastates their entire life savings paying for this or actually declare bankruptcy.
It’s really quite sad when that happens. What people can do, if they’re already younger, if you’re in the Generation X and you understand, “This is something I need to control for on my own,” you should actually take advantage of your current healthy state right now, your good health, by looking at the insurance solutions for things like long‑term care insurance and being able to apply for policies like that.
Now, this is going to be a confusing world, because you’ve got policies where you’re pay into, and if something happens, “Great, they have coverage,” but if nothing happens, you’ve kind of thrown all that money away. But you also have other kinds of policies that will pay you back if you don’t use that policy.
What’s important is for you to get fitted with the right one. Every person’s going to have a different solution. You’re going to have something that’s very specific to you. They all depend on you being healthy enough to qualify for, because insurance companies don’t want to write policies on people that are already sick. The sooner you can do that, the better it can turn out to be.
We were talking before about people in their 50s having to…kind of done paying for their kids, what are they going to do with this extra money?
One of the things they can do is fully fund a long‑term care insurance policy that when they’re done paying that, let’s say over 5 or 10 years, they don’t have to ever pay for it again. It stays there for them as a resource. If they never use it, they either leave it behind as life insurance that would be left for their kids, or it’s something they can draw on in retirement, the bulk of that money back.
A lot of great solutions for them. The sooner you get started with it, while you’re still healthy the more likely we can get something like that in place for you.
I think the other element of it in terms of healthcare is that if we watch these Medicare elections that are going in there we got to realize that the A, B, and D are just the base level plans, going to the doctors, going to the hospital, paying for prescriptions. Anything else that’s going to be outside of that is usually some form of Medicare supplements.
We offer the ability for people to shop their Medicare supplements and recommend the right policies for them, but that’s usually something for people who are already in Medicare between October and December that we’re doing that in the open enrollment period.
What’s important for people in their 40s, if you’re in the Generation X right now, you got to realize that those plans have been changing. The costs and the contributions for that keep getting modified. What you need to do is start to budget for the amount that you have to pay for your additional health insurance for the things that are covering what Medicare isn’t covering on that basic level.
Mark: At the end of the day, it seems to me that the things are always changing. There’s always new tools that pop up in the investment world. There’s new tools in the insurance world. Things and policies, they’re always changing because of what’s going on in the world, right? We get it.
The companies that creates those kind of tools, they’re also in the business of making money. They’re also going, “Well, people need some help in this area. Let’s create this tool.”
That seems to me to be part of your job is really to help educate us a little bit, if you will. Kind of like your parents being teachers, right? You have to educate us, and then give us the options. More than you telling us, “Hey, Mark, you have to do this. You have to do that. No, here’s some options. I think maybe this would be a great way for you to go.”
At the end of the day, it’s your client’s final decision, I would imagine.
Victor: There’s one other layer to that, too. It’s not only, “Here are some options for you to go.” Understand that as an independent and fiduciary advisor, the options that we’re providing for you are things that are in your best interest.
They’re independent, meaning that there’s nobody driving our recommendations except what we can go. It’s like not going to one car dealership where you’re only getting that brand of car.
Understand that you’ve gone to a broker be like, “Look, we can get choose from anything that’s out there. What do you need? You need a truck, you need a car. What is it going to help you get to where you need to?” Then, we can make the recommendation for the best one for you, regardless of the specific company that’s offering it.
That independence and that fiduciary obligation layered with this idea that we’re presenting options for people because we can know the entire marketplace of what’s available and being able to help people narrow their decisions and then it’s ultimately theirs.
It’s those two things together, Mark, that make working with somebody like us so helpful as they’re planning their retirement.
Mark: For the Generation X, just quickly, what would you say would be the best time to come in and sit down and talk with you? Is it 40? Is it at 45? Is it 50? Is it whenever retirement questions start popping up in our mind and we see the retirement on the horizon?
Victor: I guess the most self‑serving answers, like the moment you come out with any money, you come and see us. I think that if you pushed me on giving you an age, once we get to age 50, that’s a great time to begin that conversation.
We start to open up the world of additional things like catch‑up contributions towards retirement. You get a good understanding. You sort of mostly done with the most expensive parts of raising kids, maybe most of them are through college.
We can now see retirement on the horizon a little bit more clearly. Now, we can make sure that we were talking about this before, about making sure that we’re in the right direction. You might think about, like, you’re driving this big huge aircraft carrier, we don’t want to be hundreds of miles off course, because we didn’t stop and realize where we were and the direction that we need to be taking.
Even minor adjustments at age 50 are going to lead you much better in a place that you should be when you’re looking at final retirement like age 65 or 70. I would say that probably that’s the best, earliest time if we were looking for a particular number or age.
Mark: Absolutely. If you’d like to chat with the teams of Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth, find out where you are on your road to retirement, a great time to do it would be right now. 856‑506‑8300. There’s no cost. There’s no obligation. There’s no pressure. The team is here to help. They would love to help. 856‑506‑8300.
Actually, for Gen Xers, it’s a great opportunity, because you’re way ahead of the game. That’s a positive. 856‑506‑8300. Glad you’re with us today for Make It Last with Victor Medina of Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth. We’re headed to our final segment right after this. Stay with us.
Mark: Glad you’re with us today for Make It Last with Victor Medina of Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth. You can find out more about the elder law attorney side, the estate planning side. That is medinalawgroup.com, M‑E‑D‑I‑N‑A, medinalawgroup.com.
There’s also Palante Wealth to help you with the holistic planning for your retirement, the income strategies, investment strategies. What about taxes? How do I handle all of that? Palantewealth.com, P‑A‑L‑A‑N‑T‑E, palantewealth.com.
Glad you’re with us. Victor, I’m imagining that anytime anybody comes in, they’ve got questions. That’s what brings them in to talk to you about their retirement.
We’re going to go to a segment that we call, “Man On The Street.” It’s also a woman on the street as well because we have questions from both genders. These are questions I think that a lot of people have. It’s kind of fun. Are you ready to tackle some of these questions I’ve got lined up for you?
Victor: I like it. Let’s do it.
Mark: All right, here you go. First question comes from the man on the street.
Man: I was thinking I could do a pretty good job creating a plan for our retirement, but I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew. I’m starting to feel overwhelmed and wondering if I should enlist the help of a financial professional?
Mark: Do you find that there are more people that were in that, “Do‑it‑yourself era,” it seems in the last five years or so, and that people get in going, “You know what? I can do this myself.” Then, they get in there. They’re like,”Wow, there’s more here that I’m not so sure I’m on the right track.”
Or sometimes, for example, maybe the husband or the wife that’s handling all of that, then the other spouse is going, “Are you sure you got this right?” How do you handle that one?
Victor: I don’t know how the reaction is with that statement. I’m sure they’ve got their family dynamics off of it. I will tell you that there are more and more people that are coming in, especially post‑pandemic, where we had that market correction, where their world was shaken up a little bit.
They felt really confident about what they were doing. Then, they realize maybe there was another way going about it. To your point, the advent of the Internet allows the Google machine to answer any question that we put on into it. If we put a question in, it’ll answer the question.
Here’s the problem, we don’t know all of the questions that we need to ask. If I’m going to go around, and I’m going to fix some piece of plumbing in there, I can certainly google how do I replace PVC pipe?
If I didn’t know to ask the question, what is the appropriate pitch for the pipe on the way out? I’m going to have a backup in an area that I don’t want to backup.
The idea for thinking about engaging a financial professional or a professional in any area, but specifically in and around retirement is the number of questions that you can be missing, as you construct what your plan looks like, can be the thing that causes your plan to submarine.
In engaging a financial professional, you get two things that are important. The first is it gives you an opportunity to be working with somebody that knows all the questions and be able to spot the questions that you haven’t asked beforehand.
Then, the second thing this allows you to do, is develop to your second point, Mark, develop a relationship with an individual that might be able to be there for the less financially savvy spouse in the life. If it’s a man who has been doing majority of the financial leadership in the house.
Now, what they want to do in engaging with financial professionals, A, make sure that they’re on the right track working with somebody that’s an expert in the area. Also, B, develop a relationship where if the man was to die at first, then their wife has somebody that already has an existing relationship.
I will tell you that’s probably one of the smartest and most loving things that you can do, is develop a relationship with somebody that can help guide your spouse after you’re gone.
There’s been so many of our clients that have come in after the death of one’s spouse really feeling lost. We’re happy to help them. We’re honored that we get a chance to make their lives transformed by the information that we could provide for them.
At the same time, when we meet a married couple, one of the things that we stress is, we’re not working with you leading spouse, just because you’re the one that’s leading the charge on the financial. We’re making sure that we’re having a conversation with you, the non‑financial savvy spouse.
If you’re the spouse that is not regularly been involved in the conversations, that sits there, and nobody talks to you about what’s going on, it’s over your head. We do the opposite of that.
We make sure that everyone that’s involved in that plan, both spouses are brought along feeling comfortable and empowered to make decisions so that the plan that they put in place is something that they’re both agreeing to. It’s one of those important steps.
That doesn’t matter who’s around to the end, they understand what’s going on, and they have a relationship with somebody that can guide them each step of the way.
Mark: That’s the idea. You don’t wait until something happens and then all of a sudden, the surviving spouse is going, “Now, what do I do? I don’t know what to do.” This is something that you need to be proactive about.
You can always call the team. They’re here to help you. This is what they do. They help people exactly in that kind of a scenario. They prefer to do it with both of you, not after the fact with only one of you. 856‑506‑8300. Again, no cost for this. 856‑506‑8300.
The next question is an interesting question. I would imagine you have clients at Palante Wealth and Medina Law Group would have a lot of different answers on this question. I’m looking forward to it. Here’s the question, Victor. It comes from the woman on the street.
Woman 1: Before I retire, how much should I have saved in cash?
Victor: Oh, that’s a good question. Probably, the analyst in me is thinking about each one of those words and trying to figure out which part of the question that I need to focus on answering. I think that it probably broken down into a couple of different segments.
The first one is how much should the nest egg be? Which is a common question to have, how much should I have set aside? I actually liked the second part of the question, which is how much should I have saved in cash?
That suggests a couple of things that I think most people overlook. The concept of cash for me means something that’s liquid and available to spend.
I think that there’s a great question to ask, because as we get through retirement, the idea that we have put things into different worlds, the banking world, the stock market, and Wall Street world, or the insurance world, people don’t understand necessarily which world that they’re in or why.
They don’t know, for example, that they probably need to have stuff in each of those worlds in order to have a successful retirement. Let me give you our guiding principles on the way that that works up. Generally speaking, we don’t focus too much on how much you should have saved as a nest egg in retirement, because that’s going to change for every person.
The variable that’s going to determine whether or not they’re going to be successful is what’s going to be their draw rate, or what’s their paycheck from that that is going to be necessary because we can tell them they’re going to be successful.
Whatever they have saved is going to mathematically result in an optimal amount that you can live off of for a life expectancy. That’s going to be the number. I don’t care that you want more from it, it’s just not going to be possible.
We have to sometimes give people some hard news and say, “From this, this is what we can safely and reliably draw out from your retirement.”
The second half in terms of the cash actually leads me to our bucketing theory, which is something that we do in our planning that is a little bit unique and focused in the retirement planning sphere. Which is we actually believe that people ought to have money in each of those worlds, the banking world, the insurance world, and the Wall Street world, each of them is important.
We get to have that perspective. As independent advisors, as fiduciaries, we’re working with our clients in their best interest. We don’t have a horse in a race in terms of being here or there as though we’ve got some relationship with somebody else.
We’re doing whatever’s in the best interest of the client. What that means in each one of those worlds is, breaks down like this, we think that most people ‑‑ not everybody ‑‑ should have about 50 percent in the Wall Street world.
We think that about 40 percent of that should be in the insurance world. To answer the woman’s question, about 10 percent of that should be in the banking world, which for me, is the equivalent of having it in cash or cash equivalents.
The reason for that, by the way, is that that 10 percent, that set aside is our first money to live off of once we’re in retirement. Because that is completely safe and completely liquid, it’s money that will not be affected by the Wall Street roller coaster.
We’ve got some certainty about our paychecks in the beginning. The next 40 percent in the insurance world is about getting safe money that can then create the cash for us to live off of once that 10 percent has been consumed.
Again, we don’t want that to be subject to the Wall Street world. Finally, that Wall Street world is about how we grow money, so that you have enough of it for it to last and also have an inflation hedge. As things get more expensive in retirement, we’re going to need to draw more and more in order for you to keep you at the same quality of life.
The question is 10 percent, but you have to listen to the rest of the answer to understand why.
Mark: Again, if you have questions about this, what 50 percent of the market, 40 percent of the insurance rule, 10 percent cash? Everybody’s situation is different. Remember that. Those were general terms and how they look at it to start with. Everybody’s situation is different.
If you have questions about that because that’s a big question, “How much should I have in cash? What about my emergency fund? What do I need?” 856‑506‑8300 again is the number. 856‑506‑8300. Next question comes from the woman on the street.
Woman 2: What do I need to know about taxes on retirement savings? What can I do to keep taxes from taking too much of a bite out of my savings?
Victor: I love this one. This is my favorite one, Mark, because I think that taxes is the most overlooked element of creating a retirement plan. The IRS is your business partner in retirement. They gets to say how much of your money they’re keeping every year, and they get to rewrite the operating agreement of their little relationship anytime they want.
It is very important for you to focus on taxes in retirement. In fact, what I’m going to do is I’m going to point folks to a report that we have created about taxes. It’s a website that you can go to called 920taxes.com.
If you go in there and enter your information, we’re going to give you a paper that you’re going to download, that’s going to help guide you on those retirements. It’s going to go deeper than my answer right here. I definitely urge you to go to 920taxes.com on your computer or on your mobile device and get that report.
For purposes of the radio answer here, I will tell you that what you need to know about your taxes and retirement, beyond knowing that the IRS is your biggest partner in retirement, is that each kind of investment is going to be taxed differently.
If you are able to control how your taxes are going to come out, proactively, before you have to file your tax return, in the year that’s in there, you’re going to gain so much more out of your own money because of the way you’re going to be able to make it stretch out.
Most folks have most of their money in IRAs, which is pre‑tax accounts, and that’s going to end up causing there to be taxes owed like ordinary income. Like your normal job, you’re going to pay taxes at that rate.
The other thing that’s sneaky about taxes in retirement is that once we know that you’re going to be retired for, let’s say, past the year 2025, let’s make that safe bet. Then, the only thing we need to know is that the tax laws are going to change.
If we can think about…because they are set to change. Automatically, they’re just going to go up in the year 2026. What we think about is that taking this time now while the tax rates are lower to help you create buckets of tax‑free income is one of the best ways that you can help navigate taxes and retirement.
Not only would we help to save on income taxes, but then there are all these other things that get affected as well. For example, the lower your income tax number is, or your adjusted gross income is, the lower your Medicare Part B premium is going to be. The less of your social security is going to be taxed.
The more money we’re going to be leaving behind for kids in terms of the way that their taxes are going to affect the inheritance. There’s so much embedded in there. Again, we just kind of scratched the surface, but I totally recommend that you go to 920taxes.com and download that report so that you understand all of the elements of it.
If you walk away with nothing else, know that there’s planning you can do. You just have to work with somebody like us to be able to do that, to do some proactive tax planning in retirement so that you keep more of your money for as long as you have.
Mark: I think that’s interesting because at the end of the day we all get that we don’t control our tax bracket that we’re in. We don’t control the tax laws that Congress puts into place and how the IRS enforces whatever laws and we get to 72. Now we have required minimum distributions.
There’s so many moving parts in this world but you do have control over how you go about setting up your system if you will, your portfolio, and how do you move some of that money into the Roth world? How do we do things to lessen the tax burden?
As Victor has said on this program before, there’s no question that my grandparents and they retired in the ’70s, they were retiring to a lower tax bracket, there’s no question about it. We, on the other hand with IRAs and 401(k)s, all tax‑deferred things in our portfolio, that is not necessarily the case.
Taxes are a big, big thing when it comes to retirement. Victor and the team and Medina Law Group, Palante Wealth, they’re here to help but you got to give them a call. 856‑506‑8300 again is the number. There’s no cost, no obligation, no pressure. There’s no judgment either. 856‑506‑8300.
It’s time to be proactive, not reactive. Let’s take the bull by the horns and get something in place. Remember, it’s not written in stone because life happens. We have to be able to adjust on the fly. 856‑506‑8300.
Victor, I enjoyed another program with you. A lot of great information. I hope the people enjoyed it as well. I will hope you have a great week and we’ll do it again next week.
[commercial break]
Mark: Palante Wealth Advisors are an independent financial services firm that utilizes a variety of investment and insurance products. Medina Law Group is an independent estate planning in elder law firm investment advisory services offered through Palante Wealth Advisors LLC in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Registered investment advisor registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Investing involves risk including the potential loss of principal. Any references to protection, safety, or lifetime income generally refer to fixed insurance products never securities, or investments. Insurance guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims‑paying abilities of the issuing carrier.
This radio show is intended for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be used as a sole basis for financial decisions nor should it be construed as advice designed to meet the particular needs of an individual situation. Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth Advisors are not permitted to offer, and no statement made during the show shall constitute tax, or legal advice.
Our firm is not affiliated with or endorsed by the US government or any governmental agency. The information and opinions contained herein provided by third parties have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed by Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth Advisors.
Transcription by CastingWords
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS