Make It Last – Ep 161 – Aging: Concept v.s. Reality

January 29, 2022

This week on Make It Last Victor & Mark discuss inflation and if it is caused by excessive government spending.

They’ll also be talking about an article published by Dr. Ekerdt explaining the differences between having taught the concept of aging and living them… and how wrong he was!

It’s one thing to think about retirement for yourself, but what is retirement like when you have spouse that’s retiring at the same time as you? Listen to learn more!

Finally, they’ll wrap things up with a game of “Would You Rather?”

Article by Dr. David Ekerdt: I Spent 44 Years Studying Retirement. Then I Retired.

Also available on SpotifyApple 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.

Full Transcription Below

Mark Elliot:  Welcome to “Make It Last” with Victor Medina. I’m Mark Elliot. Victor, of course, he’s got two companies, the Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth. Medina Law Group started in 2006. Palante Wealth started in 2014.

Both are here to help you with your retirement planning. Certainly, the Medina Law Group can do all of the things you need for estate, and wills, and trust, and all those things that you got to do. Victor is practicing estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney.

You can find more about the law firm by going to medinalawgroup.com, M‑E‑D‑I‑N‑A, medinalawgroup.com. Victor, also, is a Certified Financial Planner professional, a registered investment adviser, because the Medina Law Group clients are going, “How come you can’t help me with my retirement planning?” I suppose I could.

He got all the education, and he’s ready to go. Started that company in 2014. That is palantewealth.com, P‑A‑L‑A‑N‑T‑E. It’s truly about having a plan when it comes to your retirement ‑‑ income, investments, taxes, estate. All those types of things that are always moving for us.

We’ve never had to deal with all of this while we were working. It’s really more about our retirement years. We have an income strategy. Certainly, when we’re working or an investment strategy while we’re working. Hoping to grow our money so we can retire someday.

Taxes, we’re always dealing with those. Estates, we certainly can’t wait till we are 80 to have an estate plan. We never know what’s going to happen.

When you get into retirement, it’s important to have all of this done. The teams are here to help. If you have any questions, 856‑506‑8300. No cost and no obligation to chat with Victor and the team. 856‑506‑8300. Victor, welcome. How are things?

Victor Medina:  Things are going well, Mark. Thank you very much. I heard you do the intro, and I looked back at the number of years that I’ve been doing this. It’s a little bit surprising me. I wouldn’t have put the number that high. I guess time flies when you’re having fun.

Mark:  Time does fly. One of the interesting things that we’re dealing with now, and it’s not a great thing obviously, would be inflation. Last year it seems like all we did was talk about taxes. That was the big topic of 2021. 2020 was about the pandemic, and “Holy cow, I hope you got emergency fund in case you get laid‑off and furloughed.”

This year so far, because we ended the year 2021 with inflation being an issue, we still see it as an issue today. If you went back to the ’70s or early ’80s, there was double‑digit inflation. It was also double‑digit interest rates.

Inflation now is at a 40‑year high, and we’re not seeing the interest rates yet. Even though Jerome Powell, the Fed Chair, said he was going to raise those a time or two, or three this year.

I want to get your take on something, not drawing sides in the political fights because the political world is nuts. There’s no question. A Kentucky Senator Rand Paul blames higher prices on excessive government spending.

Here’s what he says. He says, “In recent months, prices on nearly everything from gas, food, and clothes to electricity, car prices and rent have all increased and unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse. Congress needs to realize that further spending at this time of rapidly rising prices is only going to continue the trend of rising prices on this nation’s already vulnerable businesses and families.”

Your take.

Victor:  I don’t think that it’s as straight forward as the senator has put in his statement. It’s a good sound bite. It’s certainly clearly draws political lines for him. There’s a myriad of factors that are driving why increased prices are, in addition to the idea that we have given out so much money in response to the pandemic.

We’ve passed number of laws that have either been linked to future tax credits or ways of doing relief spending, loans to businesses, things like that. While that’s also the case, we also have a number of companies that are just taking advantage of proceed scarcity and the ability to raise prices. That’s also been well documented.

I’m not sure that it is as straightforward as it has been presented, but at the end of the day for listeners of our show, it doesn’t matter. What’s happening is, things are more expensive. If you’re facing retirement, you have to deal with the reality that things are going to be more expensive in the future than they currently are today.

Given the inflation numbers that have been reported coming into this new year. I’m with you, by the way. I’ve heard the same news about the indication that we’re going to be increasing interest rates. Even those are going to be small increases, nobody makes big swings. Fed doesn’t make big changes off of it.

In times where we got high inflation, we were already starting out with higher interest rates. Interest rates that would traditionally have been three, four, five percent and then we moved them up in response to inflation. Here, we’re starting with interest rates. We’re talking about less than a percent, one and a half percent on long‑term lending.

When you look at that beginning number, you recognized we don’t have the normal tools that we would have to responds to the economic impacts of having higher inflation. We have to plan around it.

I’m having lots of conversation with clients that have been sitting with cash inside of the bank trying to figure out what to do with it because they’re watching the purchasing power of that cash go down, just by watching the prices increase. We’re trying to figure out solutions to that. We have some. We have ways of talking with clients about this.

If you’re listening and you’re in a position where you’ve been holding on to cash and you recognized, “What I have sitting in here is not earning any interest. Because the inflation numbers are going up, prices around me are going up, I know that I can’t buy as much with it.”

You’re looking for a discussion or a solution around it, you want to learn more. Try to reach out to us. We are solving this problem for clients all the time right now.

In fact, we’re super busy with this kind of work. It doesn’t mean we can’t take on more. What we’re having conversations with people are specifically on how do we get your purchasing power the cash that you’ve had on your sidelines, be a little bit better for you.

If that’s you, if you’re interested, you want to talk to us more, absolutely reach out to us. Our number is 856‑506‑8300. That’s 856‑506‑8300.

Start a conversation because we may be able to present for you solutions that you’re not getting from either research on the Internet or from advice that you’re working on with now or whatever else. It’s a problem that we’re solving for people right now.

Mark:  Glad you’re with us today for “Make It Last” with Victor Medina of Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth. I’m Mark Elliott. We’re just getting the show started. We got a lot to get to today. Hope you hang with us the whole time.

Senator Paul released an 18‑page report on inflation about that same time he’s coming up with little quotes. He calls the higher prices inflation. Basically calls it a hidden tax on families across the country. Do you buy that? I suppose, in a way, we’re paying more for gas and things at the grocery store.

Victor:  Here’s how I would interpret it. From an economic standpoint, I would agree. As a hidden tax, it means that we’re taking away some of your money, and you don’t get to choose whether or not we keep it.

That’s the way [laughs] the government works. This is the tax, this is what we’re taking from you, you don’t have a choice about that. That’d be the same way if we had to pay sales tax, the same way we have to pay income tax.

When there are property taxes in there, we are taking money from you, and you don’t have a choice. To the extent that the government spending in terms of a relief was something that was paid forward, and is going to eat into how much money you’ll have to spend in the future, perhaps, available to spend in the future.

I agree. Look, there’s some practical problems that have to get solved when you have government programs giving out lots of money. That is a bill that has to come too, and it’s got to come too in the raising of revenue.

We only have two ways of doing that, we either reallocate money that we’re taking for another purpose, good luck trying to reallocate to defense spending, to relief, that’s probably not going to happen. The other way to do that is to increase revenue. How do we increase revenue? We increase taxes.

This is not a necessarily complicated problem that needs to get solved. We understand the way the federal government works, you bring money in and you’ve spent money. This is the way you balance what your spending is going to be.

To the extent that there is both a future increase in taxes coming, and what you have available to spend is being eaten up, as we’ve been talking about with inflation. Absolutely agree. It’s a form of a tax. It’s going to limit your purchasing power today with inflation in the future, which changes to taxes. That’s something we got to plan around if you want your money to last in retirement.

Mark:  Victor, the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies say that 34 percent of workers have accessed their retirement funds early for various reasons. It certainly makes sense, in 2020, got the pandemic, people were furloughed, laid off, and maybe their emergency funds weren’t there because they hadn’t even thought they might ever need it, maybe. I don’t know.

People were dipping into the retirement accounts. When you dip in early, you have to pay a 10 percent penalty if it’s before the age of 59 and a half. There’s all kinds of rules and regulations. You’re going to pay tax on that money as well. What are some things we should consider before taking money out of a retirement account early?

Victor:  Can I put on my hippie gear? Because we’re going to talk a little bit about mindset and behavioral finance. I’ll give you some practical stuff as well.

Mark:  Hey, do you want me to give you a sad story before you answer that?

Victor:  Yeah, absolutely. Go for it.

Mark:  Eight years ago, I had gotten divorced, my daughter was living with me. I’m like, “Oh, I need a house.” I went to my 401(k), pulled out I don’t know, 17 grand down payment on the house. Took me about four years that I had to pay the taxes off. [laughs] Not knowing what I know now, maybe I wouldn’t have gone that route.

That’s my money. I could certainly use it if I need it.

Victor:  That is a sad story because the whole purpose of what we were doing. Let’s take a step backwards. 401(k)s are your retirement savings account. The reason why they were established and created is that from a workplace standpoint, employers no longer had to guarantee any carry offer or any long‑term benefits like a pension.

They could exchange that for the ability to get help. You save for your own retirement. They were off the hook. The whole concept of this is that you’re going to need some form of a nest egg in the future.

We’re going to encourage you to save money by giving you some tax breaks you can put into a 401(k). When we started out with that, it was easy for us to do when we could manage our lives with what was leftover from what we saved.

These hardship rules never impacted us, we could see a benefit in the future. For that reason, we could stick to a plan that said, “Let me put aside 5, 10, 15 percent. Let me get some company matching if they’ve got it, and we could stick with that plan.”

We can go forward with that plan for a very long time and 30 years down the road, we have a nice nest egg wouldn’t be able to retire and be able to use that money. Now, what happens? When we enter the pandemic and in the pandemic, all the rules get thrown out. The whole life goes upside down.

Everything that we were promising as a bright future, which by the way, we had been enjoying for about 10 to 11 years, just in terms of the whole economic picture of what was going on now gets thrown out.

People are threatened, their security is threatened. It makes a lot of sense for people to say, “I acknowledge that I might have to pay 10 percent and taxes on this, but I need this money now. Don’t talk to me about retiring 20 years from now, I need to access this money now. I need to feel secure in what I’m doing.”

What ended up happening is that people rationalized a change in their behavior, and they’re willing to sacrifice their long‑term goals. What I would offer in response is the need to save for your retirement. The need for you to be able to create a nest egg, that becomes where you source your retirement income after you make a decision to stop working, and just leave the workforce.

That need hasn’t gone anywhere. Is there isn’t a thing that’s going on today that has somehow put an eraser to the idea that you’re going to need money in the future? We’ve got to remember that as being as high of a priority is what our current needs are or rationalizing some withdrawals off of it.

That’s kind of a hippie‑dippie response to the mindset of behavioral finance, and the psychology of money. The biggest growth that occurs on a compounding basis, it happens over time. Our biggest part of the hockey stick happens at the tail end.

If we don’t get there, we’re going to have a problem. The more practical response in terms of the hardship loans off of it is that, just like the story you were sharing, Mark, that your personal journey through that is that before we do anything. I think that if you did this math, if you went through this exercise, you’d probably end up deciding not to take money out.

You have to go and understand what the magnitude of the decision that you’re making. It’s not that you want to withdraw this money, but we’re going to withdraw this money, we’re going to pay the taxes. That means that in order to get the money that we want in our pocket, we have to take a bigger amount out.

When we take that amount out, we’ve got to quantify what the loss, gains on that money is going to be, especially if we’re going to take three, four, five years to pay it back. I just want everybody to have all of the information before you make a decision. Could you decide you’re going to still take money out? You might.

If you looked at the way the numbers shake out, and what the impact to your long‑term goals is going to be, that pause there, just going over the speed bump, slowing down and taking a look at the landscape before we take any actions might give you a good reason to reconsider, maybe even lead you in the other direction.

By the way, that’s something that we help our clients wrestle with all the time. It may not be an early withdrawal from a 401(k). We’re typically working with people that are over 59 and a half that are planning to retire and they’re already there.

We can also help them make an educated decision about, should they withdraw more money from their IRA in a particular year? How should they finance a car? How does that look in terms of paying off their mortgage?

All of those elements of helping you walk through a decision that could have a lasting impact to your retirement picture, that’s our job. That’s what we exist to do is to be able to help people do that. By the way, if you just wanted to get started with understanding a little bit more about this specifically in the income world, we’ve actually designed something for you to think of.

Follow our thought process, follows our suggestions and our philosophy of how you should be thinking about creating retirement income and we’ve done it as a free download. If you go to 920income.com, 9‑2‑0 income.com, we actually have a white paper for you to have you understand how you can get your money to last as long as you do.

That’s absolutely free. Put your name, your email, we’ll send it right to you. We’ll hunt you after that. It is a great resource for you to have that available to you to answer some questions.

Mark:  Absolutely. 920income. 9‑2‑0 income.com, if you’d like that information. 856‑506‑8300 if you’d like to talk with Victor about where you are and you got some questions like that, how do I make this right? How do I do this?

There’s so many moving parts in retirement that I would think unless you’re a retirement planner, you don’t know all of the maybe little loopholes and things you don’t really understand. That’s why Victor has set up the Make‑It‑Last plan for his clients that covers income. Got to replace the paychecks are no longer coming investment strategy.

Certainly, a big part. A lot of people think investments are their retirement. No, it’s a tool in your retirement tool belt. It’s not a plan. Then, of course, taxes and estate planning. All of that is a part of the Make‑It‑Last plan. 856‑506‑8300 is the number to chat with Victor Medina and the team of Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth.

We’re just getting started we got a lot to get to. This is “Make It Last” with Victor Medina. Back with more right after this.

Mark:  Glad you’re with us today for “Make It Last” with Victor Medina of Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth. Victor focuses on traditional estate planning, asset protection, retirement distribution, proactive income tax planning.

Victor has been featured on national television, the “Wall Street Journal,” “The Huffington Post,” “US News World Report.” If you have any questions or anything you hear on the show today, or just questions or concerns that you may have leading into retirement or you’re already retired, give the team a call. Medina Law Group, Palante Wealth. It’s 856‑506‑8300.

There is no cost for this. There’s no obligation, no pressure. The team is here to help, just don’t know if they can until you reach out. 856‑506‑8300. We got fun couple of segments, I think, coming up for you.

Fewer than one in four Americans think their current retirement lifestyle aligns with what they planned for their retirement to be and it turns out, it’s one thing to dream about retirement. It’s another thing to actually live in retirement every day. We had an opportunity.

This gentleman, Dr. David Ekerdt, he taught about aging and retirement at the University of Kansas for 44 years. He wrote about his transition into retirement in the Wall Street Journal, admitting that while it’s one thing to know, intellectually, what happens with retirement, living through it is another thing altogether.

We were talking before the show that we’re going to talk about this. Victor, you actually remembered reading this article, don’t you?

Victor:  I do. I have the lucky circumstance of blessing to have my wife love what it is that I do and be looking out for me. Jennifer, every once in a while, will find articles that she think I might like.

Her contribution to the success of Medina Law Group, Palante Wealth, and the Make It Last show is to find these articles and send them to me. Say, “Hey, this might be something good for you all to talk about,” or “Did you see this?”

She found this article from Dr. Ekerdt who was talking about the differences of having taught the concepts of aging and retirement and living them, and basically how different the two were. To a certain extent because I think we’re going to go into this. How wrong he was about so many things that he was actually teaching. I think he would even say.

Mark:  This is two years into his retirement. Remember, he’s taught about aging and retirement for 44 years at the University of Kansas. Now, he’s two years into retirement. He writes this article with the Wall Street Journal folks. He said one of the biggest surprises is how he feels about his use of time now.

Dr. David Ekerdt:  One surprise for me is I thought that the feeling of release and freedom that I would get from retirement would come about because I was no longer externally scheduled by a job. In my case I was a professor, and I had to teach these classes and I had to attend these meetings. In other words, meet these time commitments.

The relaxation came from taking pressure off of myself in order to have as many people do a successful career, you put pressure on yourself to attempt things, and try things, and learn things, and go for opportunities. When I no longer had to do that, that was the thing that really relaxed me.

It doesn’t matter now what time in the morning I start my walk or what time in the afternoon I decide to finish the crossword puzzle. Time is much less a pressing thing for me.

Mark:  Victor, obviously, with your time talking with retirees and helping them come up with their own Make It Last plan…I’m 62, I have a lot of friends that were teachers and retired in their mid to late 50s. I have some other guys who worked for a company that gave them a pension, they retired early 60s.

I have a lot of people that I hang out with that are retired. Half the time they go, “Oh, you’re here. It must be a weekend” because you’re working during the week to play golf or something. Your take on that because it’s relaxing, but it’s different.

Victor:  This is a big area of interest for me, just thinking about how to create a successful retirement for people. He touches on a couple of things that are important. As you’re entering the retirement, you’re shifting away from the pressures that were created around you.

Not just in the expectations of the work that you were doing because that’s certainly something, when to show up and what you’re expected to do but also as a reliable structure to lean on. If you’re trying to find a definition of purpose or identity or if you’re looking to measure yourself and say, “I’m being successful.”

They’re going to give you the standards to work on. Do you show up on time? Does your effort match what the requirements of your job are? When those fade away, the mistake that a lot of people have is to try to recreate them in the same way. What time do I get up? Am I productive today?

That can lead to a lot of judgment because you’re never going to be as productive not working as you were when you were working, especially in terms of your contribution. Being able to be a little bit more forgiving with the way that you define this. When you start to think about, for example, what is going to make a successful day?

What might be a successful month? What even is the time period that you should be measuring? Is it every day? Is it the morning? Is it the week? Are you looking at a monthly basis? What are you doing… I hate to use the word quarter because I don’t want to make it think like it’s a fiscal quarter or a working quarter, but are you looking in three‑month chunks or 90‑day chunks? You’re re‑evaluating.

Even the structure by which you set up how you’re going to measure, whether or not you’re being successful, needs to be a little bit more flexible. You need to be a little bit more forgiving. I love the idea of time because time is still a resource that is non‑renewable.

As you enter into retirement, you’re going to measure that time spent because you know that it’s not going to be something that you get back. I agree with the idea, I’m not even sure he suggested this, but I agree with the idea that you should be a little less judgmental on exactly when you do something.

Mark:  OK. This is exactly the next comment I have from him. It’s really exactly about what you’re talking about with Dr. Ekert because he says the transition into all that free time can also create some conflicted feeling for retirees.

Dr. Ekerdt:  …and you think to yourself, “Why? Why are you doing that? As I put it I have two angels on my shoulder. One angel whispers in my ear, “Relax, take it easy.” The other angel whispers in my ear, “Shouldn’t you be doing something right now?”

Mark:  That’s what you’re talking about.

Victor:  Thanks for jumping in and sharing that clip, didn’t know that you had that. That’s exactly where I’m going with it. It is that there’s this duality because you’re trying to create definition about who you are. You also have an enormous amount of pressure to make retirement successful.

That pressure not only comes because of the expectations that you have set forth be like, “Oh, when I retire, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to travel more. I’m going to have more free time and I’m finally going to be happy.” or whatever that’s going to be, but you also understand that it is of a limited time, meaning that this last third act you’re not going to get multiple shots at it.

You can get multiple shots at a job. You may even have multiple shots at careers. There’s a lot of people that change careers multiple times over the course of their work life, but you’re not going to have multiple shots at a retirement. You’re not going to get that time back. You may not have the same health later than when you begin, so the pressures can be enormous.

Recognizing that, just naming it, just understanding that there’s goes a long way to getting you on the road to be a little bit more, I’d like to say, have grace with yourself. Be a little bit more forgiving. Understand that the measure of success is not going to be what you brought into it.

If you’re making progress, you’re taking effort to do and live deliberately in retirement, that’s going to be enough for you to chalk that up as a win that day, that week. Understand that those pressures are going to be there.

You never going to get rid of them entirely, because time is fleeting and it’s going to be passing you by, but what an incredible opportunity to live deliberately, to make choices strategically and tactically about what you want to do.

Then, by the way, [laughs] to get back to me and what we do, maybe how we can help you fund that and make sure that you’re going to be safe and have peace of mind in your financial and your legal world.

Really, in the retirement sphere, if you’re a retiree, just being able to enter that phase and be happy and optimistic and be celebrating the wins that you’re creating on a day‑to‑day basis, I think that’s huge.

Mark:  So glad you’re with us today for “Make It Last” with Victor Medina, Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth, I’m Mark Elliot. If you have any questions, you want to talk to Victor about this, there’s a lot that goes into the Make It Last plan ‑‑ income, investments, taxes, estate. It’s not all about money either. This is a factor. They’re trying to figure out what you’re doing.

856‑506‑8300. Which leads me to, I think a lot of people think, “Well, why would I talk with a financial advisor? Why would I talk to Victor Medina about how I’m going to spend my time in retirement? Victor only cares about my money.” You can’t really come up with a Make It Last plan unless you know what they’re planning on doing, right?

Victor:  Yeah, man. It sounds horrible. I hate to walk around in life and people they’re like, “Victor only cares about my money.” I know that none of my clients would actually say that. We care about their retirement success, their lives outside of their money. That’s what’s most interesting to us.

When we get to the brass tacks of what we’re doing, whether we’re creating a plan or managing investments or creating legal documents and doing some legal counseling for people, we’re doing that to help somebody achieve a goal. It’s not going to be a cookie‑cutter approach for everybody that comes in because people have different goals.

Different things that they want to do. Different purposes for their life and, therefore, by extension, what their money is going to need to do. That means the plan’s going to be specific to them.

Somebody might be coming in and just be worried about leaving behind a nest egg for the next generation. Their purpose is to set up their children going forward. It’s noble, and by the way, this happens a lot with first generation wealth. They just want things to be easier for the people that they leave behind. That might be a goal.

That’s going to be very different for somebody that really wants to take advantage of the free time that they now have no longer working and they want to experience life and have a bigger spending plan off of it.

Those two are going to have completely different goals and by extension, they’re going to have very different plans. It’s for this reason, not only do we care about you as an individual, we’re energized by the things that you want to accomplish and the things that you want to do. We want to help you be successful in that area.

We can’t do our job well without understanding. We can’t do our job effectively without having a clear picture about what you’re going to consider success in the future and that we can help guide you there.

Ultimately, this is your journey. We are just a guide. We are somebody that can help you get there with some experience, some better education. Maybe a little bit more knowledge in what the area that you’re doing to help you get there.

At the end of the day, we can only help you chart a course to a destination that you have set. That’s why it’s so important to learn that from you.

Mark:  What goes into a strategy like the Make It Last plan that you create for your clients for their retirement and all those areas? In a way, I would be the CEO if I’m talking to you about my retirement, because it’s my hopes and dreams.

It’s my money, it’s the things that I want to do, but I don’t really understand all these moving parts, so you’re like my Chief Financial Officer to help guide me along the way. I’m the pilot, you’re the copilot. However you want to look at it.

What goes into that strategy like the Make It Last plan that you create in conjunction with your clients that helps turns someone’s ideas and dreams about retirement into an actual reality?

Victor:  There are things that we talk about with people about what they want to accomplish. Then we help them understand what they have to be spending in order to do that or what kind of wealth they have to generate because those things are linked.

If you want to travel, that means that you’re going to have a budget to do that, especially if you’re travel is going to be a lot of Viking Cruises and it’s very expensive. Or I’m going to go and RV and I’m going to stay at hostels when I go overseas.

Whatever that looks like is going to have a spending plan associated with it. That spending plan then gives us an idea about what your income plan needs to be. Those two things are linked together. Once we know what your income plan needs to be to be able to reach the goals that you have, now we can help to develop an investment plan for you.

Because then we have to make the assets that you’ve saved generate the income that you need in order to accomplish your goals. Then when we’re done with that element of it, we have to plan for today and guard for the future how much the federal government and the state government can take from your money.

We think about tax planning because we want you to maximize the money that you have saved, and you be the person who spends the majority of that because you’ve done careful planning on that.

Then the final component of that, the fourth of the four pillars that we create, is around estate and legacy planning which not only helps us protect what it is that you have generated with the good estate plan, but also makes it possible for you to have a very smooth transition if you happen to become incapacitated, or when you eventually die.

Those four pillars ‑‑ income, investments, tax, and estate planning. They become a framework for us to drape your retirement life. What’s nice about that, we spent a lot of time developing this market. We spent a lot of time working with retirees in trial and error, figuring out what works.

The simplicity of draping that over those four pillars, allows us to take that template like a very white canvas. I’ll paint the picture that the client needs in order to get through that. By the way, it’s not a static plan.

We talk about this concept. I’ll do the plan. Then, once the plan is done, maybe you never touch it again. It’s quite the opposite. We think about the plan as more of a living document. It is dynamic. Your life is going to change, the ground underneath this is going to shift.

Very clear example of that are tax rules and tax law changes, those things are going to shift the assumptions that we put in when we first got putting a plan together. We need to think about the plan more as a living or a dynamic document, that what we’re doing is we’re using this as a guiding North Star for what we’re choosing to do and the decisions that we’re going to make, and how we’re going to arrive there.

That plan, stuff that goes into there, as it changes, will need us to change what it is that we’re looking at. If we plan from the beginning, giving us as much flexibility in the future, what you get in return is this ultimate peace of mind knowing that no matter what life deals you along the way and no matter what comes up, you will have the opportunity to handle it, not only because the plan has designed it but also because you’re working with us as your guide along the way.

If this isn’t you yet and you want to explore this more, all I can do is encourage you to reach out. You probably already have a mind that knows that you have a plan like this, and a partner like this, or you don’t.

If you figure out that you don’t, but you want one, then you should reach out to us. Give us a call at our number. It’s 856‑506‑8300. 856‑506‑8300. Reach out. Start the process. There’s no commitment. There’s no pressure. There’s nothing that we’re going to ask of you. You’re going to make no decisions in that first meeting.

We want to get to know each other and see if there’s an opportunity for us to work together, for you to get what I promised all of our clients already have, this incredible peace of mind. They’re going to be able to achieve their retirement dreams.

Mark:  Victor and the team at the Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth serve the Pennington greater Mercer County areas as well as Bucks County. Clients in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania. It’s all about you, that Make It Last plan, those four key pillars ‑‑ income, investment, taxes, and estate planning as Victor said.

Give them a call. There’s no cost for this. It’s 856‑506‑8300. 856‑506‑8300. It’s one thing to come up with how you would spend your perfect day in retirement, what happens to that ideal day, and those retirement plans when your spouse is also retiring.

Let’s say you retire at the same time, what if you retire at different times? How does that play out? That’s where we’re headed next. Stay with us. This is “Make It Last” with Victor Medina of Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth.

Mark:  Welcome back to “Make It Last” with Victor Medina of Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth. Here to help you come up with that plan, that strategy for your retirement, and give you some confidence and clarity going into retirement.

There’s an income plan, investment strategies, tax‑efficient strategies, estate planning, it’s all in the Make It Last plan that Victor and his clients work together to create. If you come in and sit down with Victor, you’re the CEO. It’s your retirement. It’s your money. It’s your hopes and dreams.

Victor works in this world. He’s been helping folks with the Palante Wealth team since 2014, the Medina Law Group since 2006. He’s seen a lot of scenarios. We can help you avoid some of the common mistakes, certainly, but he can’t guarantee that everything’s going to be perfect. Nobody can. We don’t know what tomorrow brings.

The key is having the plan and then it lives and breathes with us as we move down the road. 856‑506‑8300. If you’d like to chat with Victor and the teams about where you are in your road to retirement, 856‑506‑8300. We’re talking today…

We got some sound bites anyway from a professor of 44 years at the University of Kansas. It’s Dr. David Ekerdt. He wrote an article after two years in retirement. He was a professor at Kansas. He taught aging and retirement.

Then, he’s two years into retirement and he writes an article about, “I taught this for over 40 years. I’m now two years into retirement. It’s a little bit different than what I thought it was, what I’ve been teaching all these 40 years.” He got a lot of things right. It’s different being in retirement.

We’re going to talk about a couple more things that David Ekerdt…We have some couple soundbites from him in this segment as well. He says one of the many factors we have to consider when it comes to retirement is not only how we will spend our own time, but what if we have a spouse who is going to retire with us.

Dr. Ekerdt:  I married him for better or worse, but not for lunch.

Mark:  It’s interesting when you think about it, Victor. Back in the day, our grandparents, for example, my granddad worked most of the time, but my grandmother worked as well at times. The old way to do it was, the mom stayed at home raise the kids, dad went off to work, dad retired. They’re both now back together all the time.

I’ve even had a friend of mine that their dad had a heart attack. The mom was a stay‑at‑home mom. Dad has a heart attack, now he’s in the house all the time while he’s recuperating. She’s like, “He is driving me crazy.” [laughs]

Their’s some challenges here. I don’t know. To most people, I suppose some both retire on the same time, because they can’t wait to jump in the RV, travel the country, or go overseas. Then, others stagger, one will retire one year and then maybe the next year or two later. It’s different. I suppose for everybody.

Victor:  There’s so many stories around it, Mark. Even my own parents, when they retired, probably had about a year break between them. They were both in the school system, both educators. Then, one was an administrator when they retired, but it gave them a year break in between.

In that year, my mom saw what my dad was doing at home, puttering around. Was resentful that she was still getting up and going to work while he was sitting around. Maybe thinking that he should be doing more, accomplishing more. While you’re home, you might as well get this stuff done, because I’ve been busy working.

I’ve seen all manner of different configurations. People the same time, somebody retired two, three years afterwards. I think that the point that you kind of punctuating with the soundbite is true. Which is that the nature of your relationship changes.

You have to be prepared for that because you existed for probably the longest period of time, your work life, you were married, you raised kids, but you had the trappings of getting up and going to work and having that identity for 8 to 10 hours a day, five days, out of the week that was outside of the home.

Then, you curated or worked on your relationship in the weekends and in the evenings, and now every day is a weekend day. Every time that you spend together is your evening time.

If you don’t have a good, solid foundation going into retirement, as a marriage, you’re going to get that challenged. Look, I’m not, in a dramatic way, I’m not going to tell you that divorces happen all the time, as a matter of retirement. There are enough of the silver divorces for people write the articles about it.

I would say that, with the work that you can’t do going into retirement, about thinking about how you’re going to work together and what you’re going to do together, is probably good work spent before you get into retirement.

Mark:  When your wife is still working, and you’re going to go play golf, say, “Hey, have a great day at work. I’m going to go work myself for a while.” You don’t have to say you’d play golf, I suppose, but it is.

Victor:  [laughs]

Mark:  I had a friend of mine that was at a really high stress job, and his thought was, “You know, at 50, I’m going to retire. Then, I’m going to get another job as a truck driver, because I want to see the country and I might as well get paid to do it. And my wife and I, we’ll just go all around the country and we’ll get paid to do it.” He talked to somebody who was actually a truck driver and he goes “Really that’s your plan, OK do this this weekend then. Have some food and stuff available for yourselves but lock yourself in the bathroom for the weekend and then tell me how it goes.

[laughter]

Victor:  Those cabins are small, they’re definitely small, probably bathroom sized.

Mark:  Here’s the good news though, certainly Victor, I mean in his research on how people act in retirement and how they adapt to retirement. You were just talking about civil divorces. He says typically there’s not really any serious effects on a marriage but there’s adjustments definitely that we have to make. But if you communicate properly you’re not going to have, hopefully, that civil divorce.

Dr. Ekerdt:  People really actually look forward to retirement, as a time they can finally spend together after decades of raising children and marching off to work. Now they can enjoy one another, together, and engage in activities that they would like to explore.

Mark:  I’m sure you have some clients that just love being with each other all the time. But did you have other clients that were like “I love my spouse but I want to do my own thing too.” For example, “I wanted to go hunting, fishing, whatever with my buddies, we’re gonna go on a golfing trip. My wife would like to go with her friends to Broadway in New York City, well I don’t want to go, I want to go golf.” There’s two different scenarios that could play out here, aren’t there?

Victor:  There are two different scenarios, I think my wife and I, Jen and I, we’re in that first one where we’re just really looking forward to being able to spend time together, we vacation well, we hang out with each other well, its kinda one if the reasons we do date nights every week and why we don’t go crazy on the different restaurants we go, sometimes it’s just the same place. It’s in the neighborhood over and over again. It’s really because we enjoy spending time together. Even if we had different interests, we would be able to negotiate around that time.

It’s very much in the way that we create a retirement plan for people, because when we have a married couple, we are having people show up with different expectations about what retirement means for them. We spent a lot of time listening to each of them.

I think that one of the failings of the industry that I’m in right now is that it’s very male‑centric around the advisors are male, the people that are driving the finances and financial decisions are the husbands often in a married couple. They ignore the wishes or the desires, the voice of the other spouse that’s in there.

Regardless of whether it’s the husband or the wife, there’s always or typically one financially savvy spouse that’s driving the desires, the needs, the planning, the diligence to save. They’re usually the one that’s leading the charge, when they meet with us. Then there’s also the one that’s less financially savvy or less financially responsible for what’s going on.

We need to hear what it is that they want as much as the other spouse. The current approach for us is to really explore the goals for each of them. One of the things that we do is actually have them fill out a form separately so that they can rank what’s important for them in retirement differently. They don’t have to come onto the chair.

Then we do spend some time in those initial meetings. Talking about where those differences are, and getting them to get to some agreement about where they want to prioritize so that the plan can do that. Listen, if they’ve got enough money set aside, we might create…I won’t call it two plans, but plans that serve both of those goals equally.

Sometimes, we have to get them to compromise to what those goals are going to be.

The important part is that we engage in the communication, important part is that you engage in the communication. If you’re in a married couple right now, you want to have discussions early about what a retirement picture looks like for you so that you don’t show up on its doorstep expecting completely two different things.

Somebody with a cottage life and somebody else with a colonial. That’s what they’re looking for. You open the door, this is exactly the house that I want. No wait, that’s not the one that you want it from it. If you do that before retirement, if you spend that time communicating and talking about what success looks like and what your dreams are.

Then getting to that point in time, you’re going to have a much happier experience. It’s going to meet your expectations. You’re going to be able to temper.

Some of the expectations won’t be everything that you want, a lot of what you’re looking for. Then you’re happy that the other person’s getting what they want as well. It goes into when we create a plan as well that it has to meet the goals of both people. Do so to the extent that we can to make them both happy.

Mark:  It really comes down to communication. Victor and the team at Melina Law Group and Palante Wealth, they’re here to help you do that. It’s sit down and have a conversation. It’s not all about money. That’s what a lot of people think.

“Well, I need a million dollars to talk with Victor.” No, you need to have some save for retirement. There’s no question, but it’s really about the plan. Everybody’s plans and hopes and dreams are a little bit different.

To sit down with a team and talk about this, you need to be open. Communicate. It doesn’t mean you have to be in the same room all the time during retirement. You can do your own thing, but you need to talk about it.

Communicate, 856‑506‑8300. Because you don’t want to be…Victor, I had a friend of mine that his dad always dreamed of retiring in Florida. Mom, though, didn’t want to leave, “Kids and grandkids are here. I’m not going.” They never really talked about it. [laughs] When it came up…

Victor:  That’s a big one.

Mark:  …we had some issues there, but they got it all worked out. What are some of the differences? We’ve got just a couple minutes left in the segment. Are there some differences between helping a single person whether widowed, widower, divorced or just plain single or a married couple? Are there a difference between working with an individual versus a couple?

Victor:  Absolutely. Some of the differences are very practical in the way that we design a plan. If you think about it from the perspective of a married couple, we have to create spending longevity for them and plan for…One of them out living the other. Typically the woman outlives the man by four years, kind of with a numbers go.

We have to claim for longevity and spending in a different way when we’ve got a married couple because we have two people that have to go for a longer period of time.

By the way, if you are actually interested in learning more about how you can plan for this kind of longevity making income last, we have a report for you. 920income.com. You go into 920income.com, you could download a white paper, just put your name email in and we’ll deliver that to you. That help you understand that.

When we think about the single individual though, we have different considerations because the married couple often serves as caregivers for one another. Meaning that if there’s a health crisis, there’s somebody needs something along the way, if they’re both alive, the other spouse, the healthy one is caring for the sick spouse but we don’t have that situation in a single person’s life.

Some of the plan that we have to do is more focused on how we’re going to help them be OK if something happens to them along the way, both from a legal planning perspective as well as financial planning, looking more at long‑term care issues, looking more at being able to manage assets with a disability provisions and a power of attorney, that kind of thing.

We have to look for a safety net because the safety net of the spouse doesn’t exist in the single person’s life. Those are just two practical ways that were very different when we approach a single person versus a married person to make sure that we are serving their best interest in the way that we design a plan.

Mark:  856‑506‑8300. This is a great opportunity. There’s no cost. There’s no obligation. There’s no pressure to chat with Victor and the teams of Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth about where you are on your road to retirement.

How do we come up with this plan, this strategy, this Make It Last plan? How do we do it? Here’s what we’re going to do. Here’s what we’d love to do in retirement. Can we do it? When can we do it? Will our money last as long as we do? Will our loved ones be OK if something happens to us? These are big questions.

The team is here to help. 856‑506‑8300. There’s no cost. I don’t know why you wouldn’t pick up the phone right now and give them a call. Set up an appointment. It’s not like going to the doctor or the dentist. It’s not the bad. It’s about, “Let’s talk about your situation. Can we help?” 856‑506‑8300. Headed to our final segment of “Make It Last” with Victor Medina. We’re back right after this.

Mark:  Glad you’re with us today for “Make It Last” with Victor Medina of Medina Law Group, Palante Wealth. Medina Law Group, that’s Victor, a practicing estate planning and Certified Elder Law Attorney. They can certainly help you with all your estate needs, wills, trusts, all those different things that go into that.

Medinalawgroup.com, M‑E‑D‑I‑N‑A, medinalawgroup.com if you’d like to find out more. Now, also has Palante Wealth, that is the holistic planning for your retirement.

The final step is your estate plan, but the first three are income, investments, and taxes. Palante Wealth handles the first three steps. Medina Law Group handles the final step. Medina Law Group can help you with all of this estate planning and then the trust and wills and all that. You don’t have to be retired certainly to be in that position.

You don’t need to sit down with Palante Wealth after you retire. It makes sense to sit down with them before you retire, maybe 10 years out be a great time to sit down and come up with that retirement plan, and know that it’s going to live and breathe with you.

Palante Wealth that is P‑A‑L‑A‑N‑T‑E, palantewealth.com. I’m Mark Elliot, glad you’re with us today. Any questions, it’s 856‑506‑8300.

We’re going to play a little game of “Would you rather,” and really to a degree, Victor, I think it’s pretty safe to say when people come in and sit down and talk to you about their retirement hopes and dreams, it’s a big game of “Would you rather,” isn’t it?

Victor:  They got to make decisions. You can’t do everything from where it is. Although we try to keep as many doors open in the way that we design a plan as possible. It’s usually that matters that you’re going to have to make some tradeoffs. You’re going to have to decide to go…going in one direction means necessarily that you’re not going in the opposite direction.

There are definitely some choices that people are going to have to make. Either would you rather do this? Would you rather do that? Unfortunately, I’m not a magician. I can’t make it happen for both of those.

Mark:  Fund, would you rather ride out of the gate. You have clients in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, would you rather work with a New Jersey client or a Pennsylvania client? No. I’m not going to make an answer to that question.

[laughter]

Victor:  What I’m going to do? I’m going to alienate half of the listeners that are in there. I will tell you this though without alienating because both people will believe this. There’s the Delaware River that basically divides this, especially where we are here. We happen to be lucky enough where the office is to be right next to where Washington crossed Delaware.

That’s always nice, they reenact that Christmas day, but New Jersey people do not go into Pennsylvania very often and Pennsylvania people do not come into New Jersey very often. They stay where they are.

When I go and I meet people out in Pennsylvania or I’ll do a seminar at a restaurant or something like that. I’ll say to people, “Our offices are located in New Jersey.” That’s the place all the way across the river over there.

Maybe a full mile into the state. They laugh because they recognize it as being a truth about themselves, so they like to stick to where they are. I understand why they’re very, both, each proud of their specific state.

Mark:  All right. Let’s talk about retirement and some of the challenges and the “Would you rather’s,” things we have to decide. There’s been a lot of talk and I’m going to give you some examples of famous people and what they’re doing in this area here in just a second, but because it is a question that people have, I’m sure, and some people feel strongly one way or the other on this same topic.

Would you rather leave a big inheritance to your family, or would you rather spend it all?

Victor:  That’s a pretty interesting one. I will tell you I’m very family oriented and I’m very much about measuring the success of my life, about how well I set up my children to be OK, especially because they’re all boys to be providers and to be guardians for their family and to take on that responsibility.

If I could assist them with that and I had to make a choice between spending it all and leaving a large inheritance, I’d probably choose the larger inheritance. I’m also easily satisfied by smaller things. While I do like nice things and there are nice things in my life.

I’m the guy that gets an iPad every time a new one’s announced. I’m a fan boy of the Apple Ecosphere. I know that I like spending money. At the same time I could be satisfied with a little bit more moderate life and I’d choose to be OK. I would choose the larger inheritance, if I had to give one up.

Mark:  Because that’s a conversation you certainly have to have with your clients, I would think.

Victor:  It’s interesting, because the planet goes in differently for that, Mark. If I were planning for myself and I was looking about a bigger in inheritance, I would have a discussion about an investment strategy. That would be something that really materializes a big balance. When I die, which I might use life insurance for, or might have a different investment strategy for how much risk I was taking.

My vision on that would be a little bit longer. The goal is sometime in the future versus if I were my own client and I was looking to spend it all, I’d be needing to really focus on an income plan and the sustainability of an income plan so that I could keep my spending levels, not only where I wanted them to be when I retired, but also to keep place with inflation, which is obviously a big topic these days that people are concerned about.

I would need to build that into the plan, so you’re right. That when we take a look at a client and look at those goals, when we’re talking about which you rather a distinction about whether we’re going to leave something behind or we’re going to spent it while they’re in there actually affects the strategy of our planning in a very material way.

We’re going to come up with two different strategies for people, again, based on which of those they choose.

Mark:  We know a lot of famous people that passed away. Typically, it was unexpected and they had no will. Prince, for example, was over a $200 million estate, no will in place, nothing. Aretha Franklin, I think hers was around $60 million, nothing in place. Walt Disney, surprisingly, did not. Elvis Presley did not.

It creates a lot of challenges, but there are some wealthy people and celebrities that we all know that have said that they will not leave an inheritance to their kids. Anderson Cooper, “60 Minutes CNN,” he says he was not left an inheritance from his mother, which was the very rich glory of Vanderbilt, of the famous Vanderbilt family. She did not leave him any money.

He said he knew that was going to be the case. It made him very motivated to succeed professionally, so he’s not going to leave anything to his son. Jackie Chan, the actor, worth an estimated $400 million and he plans to leave his money to charity rather than to his son. Marie Osmond doesn’t plan to leave any of her $20 million to any of her eight kids. She’s going to give it to charity.

Is that a trend at all that you’re seeing with people?

Victor:  Geez, I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m even struck by the statements in there because for me, I don’t know, Anderson Cooper, I don’t know Jackie Chan, I don’t know Marie Osmond, but I will tell you that for me, that’s the failure in the parenting because he can instill values no matter what money you leave behind.

I know that Warren Buffet has said something similar, that over 90 percent of his wealth is going to be left at the foundation and charity. Same thing with Bill Gates, that they’re not leaving it behind for their kids to basically generate not being productive.

Mark:  They’re going to leave behind $1 billion and give away the other…

Victor:  $99 billion that’s in there. Hopefully, they can get by with the $1 billion in their names. I understand the sentiment of where they’re going. The sentiment is I don’t want to be more of a burden by my death than I have to be. I want my children to continue to be productive members of society. I don’t want the wealth that I leave behind to somehow make it so that they’re not living their best lives.

If the methodology for people to do that is to disinherit, that’s fine, but the truth that matters that we don’t have any clients with $400 million that we’re managing. That’s not the Medina Law Group, Palante Wealth way. We do have people that have some wealth. They’re in the millions of dollars and they have that behind. What we do for them is we make sure that we keep it protected.

This is a trend, this concept of protecting what we’re leaving behind so that it doesn’t become more of a problem. It actually is a blessing is a really significant trend.

We’re handling it with legal planning so that what we’re doing within the trust documents that we’re creating is we’re protecting it from divorce and creditors. For people whose kids have behaviors that they don’t want exhibit going forward, we’re making it conditioned on them having certain kinds of behaviors.

We just recently did a plan for a client where some of it was conditioned on them regularly visiting with a health professional. The child was OK, but they knew that one of the secrets to their success was that they’re going to continue to attend to their mental health.

They made that a condition of seeing their inheritance. It’s not an amount of money that will cause them never to work, but it’s enough money for them to probably continue with this behavior.

I am seeing the trend where people want to be a blessing when they’re gone and they want to protect what it is that they left behind, but I’m not seeing the trend where they disinherit people altogether and kick them out to the cold and don’t leave them anything and say, whether you’re on your own going forward. That’s not really what we’re seeing about.

Mark:  That’s seems a little over the top to me to not just help. I would love to leave whole bunch of money behind to my daughter, but I think, sadly, she’s out of luck. [laughs] Whatever’s left, she can certainly have it. It is interesting.

Think about, Medina Law Group, that’s what they do help you draw up your estate plan. Do you need a trust? Do you need a will? What about the powers of attorney for healthcare, for your finances? All those moving parts.

This is a big question for a lot of people. Some want to leave all their money to their children, others want to leave none of their money. Most of us are somewhere in between. We want to go enjoy our retirement and then hopefully, there’s something left for the kids kind of a thing. We all look at this a little bit differently.

This is really important to come up with a plan about about this, though.

Victor:  We do.

Mark:  It doesn’t mean once you do it, you never change it.

Victor:  That’s right.

Mark:  You can certainly give the team a call. 856‑506‑8300. You would like to say?

Victor:  Mark, thanks. I was going to say that it is definitely where we’re trending in terms of being able to meet both goals. Enjoy the money that we have and make sure that what we leave behind is as much as we can and that it’s protected.

Also what that means, by the way, when we get to the plan is making sure that if we have two different goals that we might actually put two parallel plans in place, that we’re going to do some of this with this and some of this with that.

We’re trying to achieve both of these things, and maybe we’re able to do that. As you were saying, you can give us a call if that’s you, if you’re in a circumstance where you know that you have a plan that you want to see done, and you’re not maybe sure how you’re going to get there.

Or the plan that you’re on now, the road that you’re on now will deliver you to the destination which you’re thinking about.

About being able to spend money while you retire, but also leave something behind to bless people that are your kids, your beneficiaries, or somebody that you think might need it. If you’re not confident that you’re on that road right now, this is a good opportunity to reach out to us. Again, it’s the number that you said. There is 856‑506‑8300 just to start the process.

Start the conversation with us because what we’re going to do in working with you, or at least meeting you, is after get‑to‑know session and talking about what your dreams are, we’re going to give you an assessment in that form of that Make It Last plan about whether or not you’re on the road to meeting those goals.

We certainly hope that if you’re not on that road and you think our plan can help you get there, we’ll work together. It’s good information, free to have, to figure out whether or not you’re actually going to Make It Last, make it to be where you wanted to be in terms of being able to spend and leave something behind.

Mark:  856‑506‑8300. We’ve got a couple of minutes left. This would be something I don’t know a lot of people know about. Certainly, you have clients that do ’cause you’ve talked to them about it.

We’re talking about leaving monies behind to a charity organization, because it would make sense to start giving some of your money to your beneficiaries, your heirs while you can, while you’re alive to see what’s going on with it, I suppose, to a degree.

To leave it behind, let’s say, because once you’re at the age of 72, you now have a requirement of distributions. There are ways to offset some of the taxes by giving.

“You don’t need it, I’ve already won the game. I don’t need that money that I have to pull out according to the IRS when I hit the age of 72. I could donate that to charity. Red Cross, what have you, Diabetes, Heart Association and all those things.” There’s ways to do it there where you lessen your tax for it?

Victor:  Yeah, there are. I want you to listen up. If you are somebody who does not need the requirement of distributions that are coming out on your account, or maybe some of them, or if you’re somebody that has a long‑held positions in stock that have got a lot of gains, that you think about never selling them, because they would cost so much taxes, I want you to listen up, because here’s what we can do with that.

We have strategies where either we can take the RMDs and give them directly to charity, and then you don’t get taxed on that. It doesn’t get added to your taxable…By the way, it has to go directly to the charity. You can’t take it, then gift it later, and claim a charitable deduction, doesn’t work that way.

If you set it up the right way, that qualified charitable deduction, that QCD of it going directly to the charity will help offset it.

The other one is those people that have been holding on to stocks forever and ever and ever and afraid to sell them because what they were worried about in terms of capital gains. We can use a combination of legal and financial planning to contribute those assets inside of a trust, sell them tax‑free, return the bulk of that money to you.

Then leave it behind for it to go to a charity and that’d be something you might do in the future. You don’t have to give it to the charity today, but you have to set it up to give it to the charity later.

Those are two strategies were being charitable and not keeping it all or being wanting to benefit other people can actually work to your advantage from a tax planning perspective, as well, really in strategies that we get to use with clients all the time.

If that is you, and you want to figure out whether or not this is going to be appropriate for you, all you have to do is you have to reach out to us and get start that conversation because we don’t know who you are. We don’t know if this is you, but you know this, and you know whether or not this is a goal that you want to accomplish.

If you want to be charitable, and save some taxes along the way, give us a call. Give us a call at 856‑506‑8300. Don’t delay, because this is an opportunity that you know you want to take advantage of and the time to do it is right now.

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 and elder law firm.

Investment advisory services offered through Palante Wealth Advisors, LLC a 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.

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