Make It Last – Ep 169 – The Marginal Gains Theory

March 26, 2022

The show starts with a little, “Get To Know Victor,” segment. Find out how he is connected to the hit trilogy: Pitch Perfect.

Then, Victor and Mark will be discussing the Tour de France! How the Marginal Gains Theory helped France win, and if you can use the same theory to plan a successful 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.

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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:  Maybe you’ve heard Victor’s radio show before. You’ve heard him, have you seen it? Yeah, Victor, you’re probably on billboards all over the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas. Just New York City, you’re there, Times Square.

Victor Medina:  Yeah, right. I think today’s billboards are probably YouTube channel. I think that’s the only thing that anyone’s staring at these days. I don’t know anyone’s looking at billboards any longer.

Mark:  Now, I will say those people might have seen you as the local director of the a cappella group.

Victor:  Oh, my goodness. You didn’t warn me that you’re going to embarrass me this way off of it. Yeah, one of the things that I do for fun is I’m the musical director of a local a cappella group, which is great because I’ll tell you, what we do for that for fun is every Wednesday we start singing at 07:30 at somebody’s house in the area.

Everyone’s from General Mercer County, New Jersey area. We meet at somebody’s house at 07:30. We sing from 07:30 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 just have the privilege of leading talented musicians. Lot of fun.

Mark:  I will tell you that one of my favorite movies of all time and there’s like three of them, “Pitch Perfect.” Anna Kendrick. That’s what you do, isn’t it?

Victor:  …the musical director that was on this. A guy named Dick Sheeran, who actually went to my college at Towson University in New England Conservatory of Music and somebody that I knew personally. He’s somebody that sent arrangements to my a cappella group called Jersey Transit.

We have the cool connection that that music made it to Hollywood movie level. They had TV shows, called “The Sing off,” kind of cool to watch something that I went to college with, turn that into something that’s almost mainstream accepted.

Mark:  Absolutely. That’s cool. That’s what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to get to know Victor a little bit because 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 if’s.” 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 perfect 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 of something about him.

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 him.

This is a fun segment, Victor. We’re going to learn a little bit about Victor Medina. To start with a little bit about your background and how did you get involved in the financial business because 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, and then went back to law school.

I was mostly driven by my wife. Just wonderful because 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 I think traditional people do going into law school, meaning that I wanted to qualify for a judge and work for a large law firm, do corporate‑related works. That’s where the money was. Then there’s something deeply unsatisfying about that because 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. It’s early. They’d done some estate planning, really thought they had everything in order, and it turns out as a big disaster.

It was not malpractice, it was just common practice on the way the estate planning was done, but it gave me an opportunity in 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’ve made sure that plans will work when we need it to them. We tested them along the way.

We just completely changed the way that estate planning was practiced based on the fact that I had these family members who have something that I knew his family. I knew that he wouldn’t want to happen to his family.

We started doing that differently, but because of that, where we were doing with people on an annual basis, we were establishing deep and long‑term relationships. It wasn’t around the paper, but around the plan.

It 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 just because I was a lawyer but because they knew that I cared about them. I was invested in their family success.

One of those areas was about finances. For the longest time, maybe the first six, seven years of 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. We trust you. I want to make sure that we’re OK. I want my family to work with you. Can’t you manage our investments or help us with a retirement plan?”

For a longest time, I would just say, “No, I don’t have those credentials. I can’t do that for you. I’ll 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 really an expert in the area.

I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “You know what, you’re just 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 just 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 the house. It’s with exactly the same team that you’re dealing with your estate planning. You’re dealing with retirement planning.

I went and got all the credentials. I got more letters marked after my name that are in my name but the idea is to be able to do that the right way for clients. That’s how we got started.

Mark:  If you want to find out more about the law group side, just go to medinalawgroup.com. M‑E‑D‑I‑N‑A, medinalawgroup.com. Palante Wealth is P‑A‑L‑A‑N‑T‑E. Palantewealth.com and you can find out about both companies but they work under one umbrella. They are all here to help you.

I wonder, your wife Jennifer is a school psychologist, so 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 get him to law school, he can take better care of my kids?” Did she use some psychology on you do you think?

Victor:  I’d hate to ascribe that much manipulation forethought. I would rather just think that she insulted me to do it which is what she did. Maybe she did know what the ultimate results was going to be if she just tweeted one way or the other.

Mark:  Tell me. Your growing up, finances were they a big part of the family? I’m sure you went to private school, you went into 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 really financially‑savvy folks.

The biggest and most impactful early introduction of finances was essentially when my parents ended up getting divorced. I was staying 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 property, she’s retired with an apartment in New York City. A really successful story, but nobody really ever trained her or taught her on the concept of finances.

I’ve taken that lesson, by the way as something that’s crucially important. One of the books I authored is called “Empowering Women” specifically in retirement.

Empowering in retirement because I took the lesson around my mom and said, “How is it that we can help serve these women that either they are 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 are getting the right advice?”

The book is one the ways that we’re able to do that. The earliest lesson on finances was just 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 mistake or struggles and really got sophisticated in thinking about it and doing things the right way.

Mark:  You think about now as a parent, you and Jennifer, three boys. Aiden is 17, Lucas is 14, Dylan 8. There are different stages. Aiden is getting ready. One more year of high school then go off to college if that’s what’s his choice is.

Lucas is getting ready for high school, Dyan just graduated from middle school. No, Luke is just graduated.

Victor:  Elementary. Yes. Second grades still for him.

Mark:  Lucas has just 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 is 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 seems to me growing up. I never really heard much about money. My dad was a college coach. My mom was a school teacher then worked for a bank. We really 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 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:  I think it’s essential. It’s one of those areas that they probably be adding into school‑related topics much more than physics for…

[crosstalk]

Mark:  Would it be cool if they taught what you talk about to actually head classes like that to how to think about finances because I don’t read that one.

Victor:  Never happened for me. Did it happen for you?

Mark:  No, no. Not at all.

Victor:  I think is really 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 you kids. You go back a fourth with one of these two positions, Mark.

Either you don’t have a lot and 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 saddle with them or you have a tone and the last thing you want [laughs] them to do is become complacent about either work ethic or what it took to get there.

In this no man’s land for trying to figure out how to have these discussions. They are important discussions to have and they are discussion 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 example for me because I’ve learned two things from each of them or how successful I’ve had these financial conversations.

Aiden got a job as a lifeguard. By the way, great job for a high school kid to be sitting at the pool, getting at hand and swimming and looking good. He works. He gets his paycheck. He’s now driving. He’s responsible for his own gas.

We got lots of stuff in there, but he tells me this is after I’m trying, “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 is 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 and 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 just instead of give me the 10s in one spot, he was giving me the hundreds spot off of it because he understood the value of a savings rate, and why that was important for him. I knew that I had landed that one, that one was successful.

Then with Lucas, is the middle when 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. It’s not that we’re sending out to the fields to get working early, but 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. Then eventually, how you increase that over time.

The one that he’s got, he’s designs on following in dad’s footsteps, the clearest, at least the way he’s communicate is my middle son, Lucas. He wants you to Tufts a way, I went to Tufts. He wants to go to law school. He wants to have a financial degree, and 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 it. I know it to be true for what we do. I hope he understands that we’re delivering immense value to families, what we do for a living is transformed their lives and give them security in retirement. He wants to be a part of that. I like those elements.

With the eight‑year‑old their Mark, we’re not sure but we’ll see what how he turns out. The first two, abandon the Hall of Fame numbers so far.

Mark:  Absolutely. The financial retirement business is important because 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, and 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, “When I wake up tomorrow, I’m going to be fine.” We’re thinking we’ve got things moving in the right direction.

How do you do that if you’ve never worked in the retirement world? Well, that’s where Victor’s companies come in to help you do that, and 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.

Mark:  Welcome back to Make It Last with Victor Medina. Victor has got two companies we talk about every week on the program, Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth. Victor is a practicing estate planning and certified elder law attorney.

There’s a website, you want to find out more? It’s medinalawgroup.com. It’s about flat fees in the estate planning world, and it’s about client care. We’re trying to help you, we know some estate laws are getting ready to be changing, it sounds like in the near future, medinalawgroup.com.

Now, Victor also has Palante wealth which is about holistic planning for your retirement, income planning, investment strategies, tax planning. That is a part of Palante Wealth.

Victor is a Certified Financial Planner professional. He’s a registered investment advisor, works under the Fiduciary Standard in the investment world. Morally, legally, ethically obligated to do what is in the client’s best interest.

If you don’t have a plan, you got all the tools in your retirement toolbox, but you’re not sure you have a plan? Hey Victor, I’ve done enough. I think I’m going to be OK, but I don’t know how it’s all going to work.

Well, that’s a great opportunity. Call Victor and the team of Palante Wealth, but you can find out more about the company just by going to palantewealth.com. That’s P‑A‑L‑A‑N‑T‑E, palantewealth.com.

I’m glad you’re with us today, I’m Mark Elliot. Victor, are you a bike rider? I know you got a son that’s a soccer player and a son who’s a swimmer.

Victor:  It hurts after a while, Mark. I can’t sit on the seat long enough. No, I’m not a bike rider at all.

Mark:  I figured you jumped on the bike every weekend and flipped over to Philly and back just for exercise purposes.

Victor:  Not a chance. I drive very carefully around them on the weekend when I see them biking.

Mark:  The Tour de France is the most outstanding and highly respected bike riding competition in the world. I’ve watched some of that, probably not those since Lance Armstrong days.

That was crazy, how those guys do this. This bike race held in France and neighboring countries every year takes place over 21 days, so three weeks. They cover approximately 2,156 miles. I would say it’s not flat bike riding. We’re going up into the mountains and all of that.

To compete in this bicycle race, you need to be in tip‑top physical and mental shape because it’s a grind. Over an eight‑year period, Victor, the British Cycling Team won 16 gold medals, and seven Tour de France wins. Before that they were terrible.

This success, they credit, is a team use the Theory of Marginal Gains. We’re going to see is there the Tour de France theory of the British cyclingtTeam shooting for marginal gains? Can we use that in the retirement world?

The theory goes like this, Victor, if you make a one percent improvement in a host of tiny areas, the cumulative benefits would be extraordinary. You think about retirement.

We’ve heard coaches say, “Hey, we want to be better next week than we were this week. We want to better in tomorrow’s practice, we were today. We want to make a little bit of improvement every day.” That’s marginal gains. Are there areas in retirement planning that if we could make a marginal gain, we’d be better off by a mile down the line?

Victor:  Yeah. I’d say one of the ones that’s most often overlooked because it’s a part of the industry, it is swept underneath the rug, which is the cost of investments.

A lot of people are unaware about how expensive investments can be. Especially when we’re looking at mutual funds of variable annuities, where a lot of the cost can be embedded or hidden in there. We don’t understand why they are so expensive or even that they are at these higher levels, it’s maybe even two to three percent per year.

If you think about marginal gains if you are able to reduce the amount that you’re paying for your investments. Making everything else equal, making the performance of them be equal, making the dollar amount that you start, the time horizon that you’re invested.

If all you do is change the cost of those investments, you see that marginal change allows you to make these incredible gains sometime in the future. I ran the numbers and the average at one point time for mutual funds was almost 1.44 percent. That was the average. It was a DALBAR Study. It had all of that information behind it.

If you just brought that back down by one percent it meant that over a 10‑year period, same gains, same period of time in terms of the invested in there. If you just brought that down by 1 percent, you saved over 20 percent of your own money. It was yours and it didn’t go to fee.

Definitely looking at the cost of your investments is one of those ways that you can make this marginal improvement that allows you to have much bigger gains down the road.

Another area is definitely in taxes. If you start to think about the cumulative value of paying lower taxes or locking in tax rates, as that money continues to grow, then you’re able to make a lot more off of it, the savings that you have in there starts to compound over time. We might look at it in taxes as well.

I think the final area that I would be focused on in terms of making marginal gains is on lowering your overall risk. Now that sounds a little bit weird because we’re talking about gains, you’re like, ”Well, what happens if I lower my risk? How does that relate to gains?”

What we’re talking about there is that if you start to de‑risk your portfolio, so that events in the future that could potentially reduce the value ‑‑ like a recession, like a market correction ‑‑ if you reduce the impact of that, then what you’re able to do is in terms of the use of that money, and having that grow in the future, it actually lasts longer. It has a more secure for its retirement.

Those are little marginal changes, marginal improvements that you can make in your retirement planning. They’re going to have much bigger gains, maybe even allowing you to bike up and down the Pyrenees for 2,100 miles if you were going to be running the Tour de France of your own retirement.

Mark:  There you go. 856‑506‑8300 to make sure you’re in shape enough to go up and down the Pyrenees. Victor and the team are here to help you. When it comes to all of this planning, that’s what is such a challenge, I think.

If you don’t work in the financial world, you certainly have done some good things, obviously, to get to that point where you’re getting closer to retirement.

Do you actually have a plan for income, investments, taxes, for estate planning? The team is here to help you get started, the best time to do it is now, why not give them a call 856‑506‑8300. There’s no cost, no‑obligation for this, 856‑506‑8300.

I want to take these marginal gains in a little different direction. I’ve got friends, I’m 61, so I’ve got friends that are retiring right around me. I know that I played way too much golf younger that means that I need to keep working. Well, they were working while I was playing.

They’re retiring now and you think about when people are working, they’re thinking about the rate of return, “What am I making on my money?”

When we get to retirement, are there times you have to sit down with somebody and say, “Look, I know you’re getting 8, 10, 12 percent during your working years but do you realize that if you only get an average of three, four percent, you’ve won the game?”

Marginal gains sometimes can be a positive rather than going backwards, but sometimes people still have that idea of being in their thirties and forties and we need huge gains all the time. Marginal gains can win the game sometimes, can’t they?

Victor:  Absolutely. The shift down, so that we’re not having to swing for the fences every time, is it allowed to make a mixed metaphor in sports on this? [laughs]

I know we’re on ESPN channel. Just shifting on where you’re swinging for is often a smart strategy in the way you’re going forward. Here’s the reason why.

If you start to look at the nest egg that you’ve created in retirement as being these last dollars that you have to have managed, you start to change your perspective on what’s really important for you to be successful.

If you don’t need to take on additional risk, even if that has paid off over some period of time. From 2009 to 2019, the longest bull market in the economic cycle and we saw all those increases. We got a little bit lulled to sleep, to think that this is always going to be the case. There’s a cycle for a reason, they’re up and down.

If you don’t have to take risks in retirement, you lower the chances that these market corrections, even if they’re way out there in terms of probability, that it doesn’t affect retirement. Of course, it’s smarter to do that. You really got to think about how your retirement is set up. What you want is complete peace of mind.

You want a return on your investments while you’re accumulating wealth. You want a return on your retirement when you get on there. That’s not coming from riding the roller coaster of whatever the news cycle is, with whatever is going on in the economic conditions.

You just want to know that your plan is set up to withstand all levels of economic condition. One of the best ways you can do that is to de‑risk or lower the risk that’s in there.

You lower your expected returns because what will happen, this is what we do when we put a plan together. We say, ‘Well, what’s the minimum amount of risk that we need to take to make this be successful? Why don’t we go and do that? Why don’t we go figure out what the minimum amount is and only expose ourselves to that because that’s probably the smartest thing.”

Mark, coming into this, my whole journey of starting as an estate‑planning attorney, and then moving into the financial services and then doing the both for clients at the same time holistically, all along the same spectrum. I never lost that attorney’s mindset. I don’t believe anybody. I’m walking around there saying, “I don’t trust that, I don’t trust that, I don’t trust the other.”

If somebody says to me, “Well, look, this is going to work as long as you make seven percent.” He’s like, “Hold on a second. I don’t want to have to make seven percent. Is there any way that I can do that where that’s not a risk?”

I’m thinking through that the same sort of legal strategy that I would do for legal clients that are going into litigation doing the same thing in retirement, say, “Well, hold on a second, how do we increase the chances of a success in retirement?”

That means that we have to lower our expected return. Why don’t we go ahead and do that? Makes it a lot easier to get to a successful end and just be sleeping peacefully at night going, “No matter what’s going to be coming on, I’ve got a great plan in place, and I’m going to make it to the end.”

Mark:  That makes a lot of sense. Obviously is having that plan in place. Everybody’s plan is going to be different because everybody’s hopes and dreams for retirement is different. Their needs are different.

Don’t forget, the Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth serve the Pennington, Greater Mercer County as well as Bucks County. Victor’s got clients in New Jersey, clients in Pennsylvania, They’re here to help. You want to learn more, 856‑506‑8300. No cost for this chat on the phone. 856‑506‑8300.

We are talking about the Tour de France, the British cycling team over an eight‑year period won 16 gold medals and seven tour de France wins. Before making tweaks to the team, the way the team trained, the way the team prepared ‑‑ the cyclists were stuck in mediocrity. They weren’t very good for the better part of a century.

Then came along Sir Dave Brailsford, who revolutionized the sport using this theory of marginal gains. This guy, obviously a stickler for the detail, hard to deny he was wrong, but here’s a few small things he did.

He had the floors of the team truck painted pristine white to spot dust on the floor because the smallest amount of dust could potentially impair bike maintenance. He tested different types of massage gels to see which one led to the fastest muscle recovery. Remember it’s a three‑week 2,156‑mile bike‑ride up and down the mountains.

They also hired a surgeon to teach each rider the best way to wash their hands to reduce the chances of catching a cold. Don’t want to be sick on that ride. The healthier you are, the better chance you have of doing well.

I think of the Wizard of Westwood, John Wooden with Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton, and all those great UCLA teams. He actually spent time showing them how to put their socks on so they would not get blisters. We think about it. Sometimes the small things are really big things over in the big scheme of things.

How important is it to be that coach for your clients at Medina Law Group, at Palante Wealth? Those that are getting ready to retire and already are retired, how important is it for you to be their financial coach?

Victor:  Let’s take them in order. I think you use really great analogies that speak to the way that a retirement coach/retirement planner would help all of it. You think about the floors on the truck that are painted, just looking for anything that might cause a problem in the future.

We think about that and our plan, in the way that we help clients, is our proactive income tax planning. We are modeling what a 10‑40 would look like when there are further taxes, not after the taxes are already done, but pre the end of the year.

It’s a discussion that we have with our clients in the beginning of the year to try to help make sure that we don’t inadvertently pick up a speck of dust that might cause us to have a higher Medicare premium or somehow go into the next tax bracket. It’s the attention to the small details with the proactiveness that helps us avoid some of that.

When we think about testing the different kinds of massage gels, it speaks to me, Mark, about the level of independence that a financial coach has. For us, having a registered investment advisory affirm, working independently where we can choose from any of the products that are out there, any of the solutions that are out there, being held to a fiduciary standard, I have to find the best one.

It allows us to go to that marketplace and figure out exactly what is the right solution for that client. We don’t have to answer to any buddies, you’ve got to push this product. You have to sell the other one or here’s the sales grid, which happens with a lot of the bigger broker‑dealers.

Our independence and our ability to focus on retirement‑based solutions, allow us to go pick out exactly what is the right solution for a particular client and get the best‑in‑class for what they need.

Finally, we think about hiring a surgeon to teach each rider what the best way it is, or tell us how to bring on our socks. That’s when we bring in experts out there that have a multidisciplinary approach to what they’re doing.

A coach might be really good in one of these areas. You may need help, for example, in some higher‑level tax planning, or you might need help on a state‑tax matter. You might be somebody that needs help, for example, on choosing the best Medicare plan.

That’s something we don’t have our best expertise that would be our surgeon out there. We would go in and bring the best Medicare broker to help us select what are the plans that we should be doing, what’s our best choice on a prescription plan, on the open‑enrollment season, and really offer that as a value add to the service that we have for all of our clients.

Again, a good coach should be thinking about the overall health of their team and what’s going to help them perform the best in the same way with that our clients. We really want to stand with them, alongside them.

They’re the hero of their own journey. We want to help them be successful, and the success for them is going to make sure that make it all the way through retirement with peace of mind and being able to accomplish all their dreams.

Mark:  If you think about it, most of us have done a nice job of saving for retirement. We’ve got IRAs. We got 401(k)s might have some real estate. We got stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, all the things you can throw into the investment world, might have some life insurance, might have some annuities.

We’ve got a lot of different tools. We can throw him out of stock paying dividends. There’s a lot of things we can throw into our portfolio. The question is, do you understand how each item in there is helping you have a successful retirement?

Now, if you’re not really sure how it all meshes together, this is a perfect time to sit down with the team at Medina Law Group for your estate planning, for Palante Wealth, with all the retirement planning that goes into that. It’s really both worlds are tied together.

You don’t want to have a retirement plan that just focuses on investments, because where’s your income coming from? How do you know where it’s coming from? What about taxes? That can certainly have a bigger play even down the road.

Then what about estate planning? You don’t want to leave your loved ones in the lurch and not really fond that you’re not here anymore, because you didn’t do what you should have done beforehand. All of this goes together.

856‑506‑8300 is the number to chat with Victor and the team. 856‑506‑8300. There’s no cost, there’s no obligation, there’s no pressure, there’s no judgment. Why wouldn’t you? You’ve got the tools. You may not have the plan. Why not find out? 856‑506‑8300.

We’re comparing the Tour de France to retirement planning, but we’re going to change and tweak just a little bit. We do know that marginal gains really just goes to show that every little detail counts, but it’s still at the end of the day falls on us to make sure we stay mentally strong and commit to the long‑term goals.

That’s where we’re going next. Stay with us. This is Make It Last with Victor Medina, with the Medina Law Group and Palante Wealth. We’re back in one minute.

Mark:  Welcome back to Make It Last with Victor Medina. Victor has got two companies as I’ve mentioned Medina Law Group. Estate planning is where they’re here to help. Victor is also a certified elder law attorney, and the website is medinalawgroup.com to find out more.

Victor also has Palante Wealth which is about holistic planning for your retirement. Victor is a certified financial planner, professionally registered investment advisor operates under the fiduciary standard in the investment world, morally, ethically, legally obligated to do what is in the client’s best interest. That’s really important. Their website is palantewealth.com.

Victor is also the author of three books on retirement planning under his acclaimed Make It Last series. Let’s say somebody calls the next 15 minutes. Could they get a copy of your book? Is that something that’s really priceless and that if I got a copy, my retirement would be taken care of?

Victor:  I’ll tell you, you twisted my arm, Mark. Let’s do that. Let’s go ahead. Anybody who makes a call in there, they’re going to get their choice out of any of the books that we’ve published in there. Whether we’re talking about empowering women for retirement or getting your nest egg secure or making sure that you’ve got your legal ducks in a row.

If you call and you make reference to the show, we will send you a free copy. It is priceless by the way.

Mark:  That’s what I figured.

Victor:  It is priceless, but we will send it to you because you asked for it, Mark, in the show. You can thank Mark.

Mark:  I like this Make It Last series because it’s not just all about money. It’s about women and the challenges they might have in retirement because you think about 80 percent of men die married, 80 percent of women die widowed, divorced, or single. At the end of our lives, it’s different, I think.

That’s cool. You do have a book on the women’s challenges, but there’s just a lot of information that we need to know because we’ve never retired before. We want to get it right. 856‑506‑8300 and said, “Hey, Mark said I could get a copy of one of Victor’s books. Can I do that?” Yes, Victor just gave us permission.

856‑506‑8300. It’s just the Make It Last series. They’ll give you an option to choose the one you want. Great deal. Thank you, Victor, for doing that.

We’re talking about the benefits of marginal gains. We’ve heard the coaches always say in the NFL, “Hey, we want to be better week two than we were week one, better in week five than we were in week four, and so forth. We want to make a little bit of improvement every single week we go along.” Same thing happens all over.

Employers want their employees to be just a little bit better today than they were yesterday. We’re talking marginal gains and making small tweaks to help improve your overall situation.

To make marginal gains, that needs equal commitment on your part. If you set a goal to get in shape, you have to do more than just exercise. You can’t go eat at a fast‑food joint every day. You didn’t get overweight, because you had one cheeseburger. You have to eat right as well.

Eating healthy requires mental toughness because we love our cheeseburgers and stuff to give them up. Bestselling author Amy Morin writes about things that mentally strong people always say. We’re going to go over some of these. Victor’s going to give us his thoughts on how that leans into retirement planning.

Before I give you the first one, I’m going to give you this and tell me if you can find a similarity between a parachute and a human brain.

Victor:  You’re actually asking me or no?

Mark:  Yeah, I’m asking you. Do you know what the similarity between a parachute and a human brain would be?

Victor:  I have no idea. If it’s not open, it doesn’t work. How about that one?

Mark:  Yeah, absolutely.

Victor:  Yes, I got it.

Mark:  Absolutely. Here’s what Amy says mentally strong people always say. The first one is this, “I’ll consider whether that’s right for me.” How does that relate to retirement planning?

Victor:  That’s good. It dovetails to the clients that we love working with, but mentally strong people just aren’t going to follow other people’s guidance, and if it worked for them, that it’s going to end up working for me. They want to make their own decisions off of that, and they really want to evaluate it from their own perspectives.

I tell you, one of the things that we pride ourselves on is really empowerment through education. We’re known for taking the time to walk everybody through all of the principles about their planning.

We never ask somebody for blind faith that says, “Well, look, we’ve done planning for thousands of people, and we’re here to hear all the success stories off of it. Why don’t you just go ahead and do business with us, and let us help you with our planning?”

We walk them through each of the principles that we think are important for them and their plan. We encourage them to have open communication so that they are, again, getting to a point in time where they’ve tested this idea in their own head.

They’ve considered whether it’s right for them, and they’ve made a decision that they think that’s in their best interest. I’m really into this autonomy of our clients to make decisions where their guide. We’re not asking for the just full‑on power to do whatever we want. We’re guiding them in the right direction, and we’re empowering them make those decisions.

Ultimately, they’re choosing to go down a path that we’re suggesting because they’ve determined that it’s the right direction for them. I think it relates not just to, but we’re partly playing in general, but the clients that we love working with are the ones that come in with that attitude.

Mark:  Victor, how do you make each retirement plan feel unique to the couple or the individual? You could have five people come in or five couples come in in one day. My guess is that out of those five plans, none of them are the same. There might be areas maybe, but overall they’re different plans, because it’s different it’s needs, right?

Victor:  Yeah. Here, we get into that little balance. Generally speaking, the principles about what would make a good retirement are “universal.” You want to make sure that you’ve got the minimum amount of risk you have to make to make sure that you make success in retirement.

You want to navigate income taxes, you want to know I have a mess when you die. You want a good solid‑state plan. You have principles that are guiding principles that are things that are just mile markers on your journey. You want to make sure that you’re hitting those along the way.

The way that we make sure that every plan is unique to the client is we spent a lot of time, Mark, goal setting with them, having a conversation. Maybe it’s not as formal as what are your goals, but talking through with them and those initial meetings.

What is your dream for what a great retirement looks like? What for you is the most important elements? What you would consider to be success? We all have different ideas about what that looks like. For that reason, we’re going to have different paths on how we’re going to write there.

Some people are very invested in making sure that they are leaving behind a great inheritance for the grandkids. They want to make sure that they’re setting up and creating experiences during their retirement for their family. They may be looking at a special needs child that they have to care for, that they have an obligation to fulfill.

Everyone’s going to come in with a slightly different set of needs off of that. Once you start spending time, and this is really where we pride ourselves in the amount of time that we spend with clients, getting them to get clear on what would a great retirement look like, and how are we going to meet those needs.

Then we can start to crack the plan to them. That’s where we get to that unique is that the plan itself is custom‑tailored. We deliver this eight‑page planning document.

It is long and robust enough to go into each one of the elements. It’s important for them. We talk about what their goals are, and what needs addressing, and how we’re going to do that. It’s also short enough or it’s simple enough for it to be actionable.

The worst thing we want to do is, produce a 50‑page action plan that we’re never going to get off of the ground to get done.

If we can really streamline how we’re going to get successful, there’s an elegance to being able to create a plan, but it’s something that they can use in retirement, be successful in that, and that is custom‑tailored to their particular needs, where they’re not talking about a cookie‑cutter‑portfolio and just buy these things and you’ll be all set. It really is at any point in time, what is it, the plan that we need?

By the way, in addition to that, Mark, not only are we setting up that plan, but the relationship that develops out of that is one in which we are constantly evaluating that plan against those needs. If those needs and those goals and those dreams change over time, we’re going to tweak the plan to make sure that we got a chance of success on that new plan.

We’re always constantly evaluating that to make sure that where we’re then, that well‑established tolerance or guidance to be able to be successful, or are we still on target for what we need? Is the piano still playing in tune? Do we really love the music that we’re hearing?

Mark:  Absolutely. It’s about whomever you’re sitting down with. I look at it like this, if you come in and sit down with Victor and team, whether it’s Medina Law Group because you’re really focusing on estate planning, got some issues, understand that.

That’s why Victor has that company. He started that company back in 2006, but then he had so many clients going, “Well, what about the rest of my retirement planning? Why don’t you help me?” In 2014, Victor started Palante Wealth to help people with that side of it.

They go together, but it is about you. You’re the CEO. It’s your retirement. It’s your hopes and dreams for return. Victor’s teams understand some of the challenges and some of the what‑ifs you need to be prepared for in retirement. You need a plan.

The plan is not written in stone. Plan is going to change when life happens. 856‑506‑8300 is the number if you’d like to chat with the team about your situation. 856‑506‑8300. We’re talking today about what mentally strong people say to themselves. Another one certainly is this. This will be hard, but I’m going to do it anyway.

I’m sure that’s part of the things you teach your kids, right? They’re 17, 14, and 8. Aiden, you’re telling your 17‑year‑old different things probably than your 8‑year‑old to a degree, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to work hard to get where we want to go. Not a lot is given to us. It’s going to be hard, but I’m going to do it anyway.

How do people stay focused on the long‑term and not get emotional about the ups and downs of the market or this political thing or that? How do we stay focused long term?

Victor:  I love it. I love that you referenced Aiden, because right now we’re going through a journey of him prepping for the ACTs, and he’s been really investing a lot of time.

One of these things that his work in there definitely meets the “This is going to be hard, but we’re going to do it anyway.” What he’s seeing at the end of the crosses ‑‑ I’m going to bring it back to retirement planning a second ‑‑ but what he’s seeing at the end of this is he’s making all of these strides and these gains in what his score is so that he is in the best position to be successful.

Or even long‑term beyond taking the SATs but going into college where he is going to have options for where he is going to go. What we see is that, this disciplined approach, this long‑term view, his ability to not be impacted by the noise that’s being generated on short‑term news channels about what’s going on here.

Because not only do you have faith in the plan that you have executed, but you’ve got the discipline to stay the course because you’ve been taught ‑‑ as you were talking about earlier in the segment ‑‑ about how we went spent time with everybody, and really transparent about the strategies that we’re putting forth.

You’ve really understood the underpinnings about why this is going to be successful and that difficulty of staying disciplined will pay dividends over time. For our best plans, of course, you are seeing that because you’re going to have that space in time between when they first set up the plan and when they are there enjoying retirement and seeing it.

I will tell you where it came to bear was when we had that big changeover in the pandemic, where everything already started to slow down. It hit us 20 to 30 percent correction in that March and everybody was panicking on the news because we saw these account values go up except for our clients.

We had a long series of conversations, we scheduled time, how are you doing? Most of the times we spent on, do you have enough toilet paper? Because their concerns really wasn’t about the markets or their accounts, because we had already built in a plan.

Their discipline of following that plan before the pandemic hit made it really easy to stay disciplined when it did hit because they were seeing the fruits of all that work come to bear, where they didn’t have to be worried. Where maybe the people who weren’t following such a disciplined approach, they’d have been very, very worried.

That really is where we see such value of doing something difficult, but doing it anyway and staying committed and focused on the long term is where we are going to see the benefit of putting that plan together.

Being able to really have to peace of mind to shrug off the news that’s coming off on any particular moment, because we know we have a great plan. We know that we are going to be successful because we’ve gone ahead and tested it and we know all about it.

Mark:  Well said. You think about it, the great tennis player Venus Williams said, “Make realistic goals, keep re‑evaluating, and then be consistent.” That would work in our everyday lives, that would work in retirement. If you’d like to chat with Victor and the teams when it comes to your retirement, or I think I’ve done enough.

I’m not sure if my money is going to last as long as I do though. That’s a question. I wonder if my loved ones would be OK if something happens to me. Hey, Victor, when can I retire? How much do I need? Those are big questions. Really we just want to know if we’re going to be OK if we pull the plug on our working years, right?

Is our retirement going to be OK? Can we make some adjustments along the way because we want to travel more? We want to stay at home. Whatever you want to do. 856‑506‑8300 is the number. No cost, no‑obligation for this phone call. 856‑506‑8300.

Glad you’re with us today for Make It Last with Victor Medina. We are headed to our final segment right after this. Stay with us.

Mark:  Glad you are 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 a 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 are with us. Victor, I’m imagining that anytime anybody comes in they’ve got questions, right? 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 woman on the street as well because we have questions from both genders.

These are questions I think that a lot of people have, and I think 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:  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. 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…We’re in that “Do it Yourself ERA.” It seems like in the last five years or so, and that people get in going, “You know what? I think I can do this myself.”

Then they get in there, and they’re like, “Wow, [laughs] there’s more here that I’m not so sure I’m on the right track.” 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?” [laughs] How do you handle that one?

Victor:  I don’t know 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 confident about what they were doing. Then they realized, maybe there was another way about 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, but 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 is it? 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 and financial professional or professional area, but specifically in and around retirement is the number of questions that you could 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 I think 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 that allows you to do is to 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 life if it’s a man who has been doing majority of the financial leadership in the House.

Now what they want to do and engaging financial professionals, A, make sure that they’re on the right track or working with somebody that’s an expert in the area, but also, B, develop a relationship where if the man was to die at first, then somebody that already has an existing relationship.

I will tell you that it’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 spouse being lost.

We’re happy to help them, and 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, as has 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. Then all of a sudden, the surviving spouse is going, “No, 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, but 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 because I would imagine you have clients that add 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:  Before I retire, how much should I have saved in cash?

Victor:  Oh, that’s a good question. It probably the analyst and 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 an answering, but 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 really common question to have, how much should I have set aside?

I like the second part of the question, which is how much should I have saved in cash? Because that very clearly 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.

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 and 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 optimal amount that you can live off of for a life expectancy. That’s just 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 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.

We 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 interests, 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 is in the best interest of the client. What that means in each one of those worlds breaks down like this.

We think that most people, not everybody, but most people should have about 50 percent in the Wall Street world. We think that about 40 percent of that should be in the insurance world into the 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, and 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 to how we grow money, so that you have enough of it for it’s to last and also have an inflation hedge because as things get more expensive in retirement, we’re going to need to draw more and more in order for keeping it 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:  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 get to say how much of your money they’re keeping every year. They get to rewrite the operating agreement of their little relationship any time they want.

It is very important for you to focus on taxes and 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 in 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’ll 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 investments is going to be taxed differently.

If you are able to control how your taxes are going to come out and proactively before you have to file your tax return, like in the year that’s in there, you’re going to gain some much more out of your own money because of the way they’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 causing there to be taxes owed like ordinary income, like your normal job, you’re going to be taxed at that rate.

The other thing that’s kind of 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 other 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, because 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 their taxes are going to affect the inheritance. There’s so much embedded in there.

Again, we just 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 that 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:  That’s really 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 obviously enforces whatever laws and we get to 72. Now we have required minimum distributions.

There’s so many moving parts in this world. 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 IRA’s 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.

Announcer:  Taxes are just a fact of life. You can’t avoid it even in retirement. What if I told you there are ways to minimize what you pay in taxes? Victor Medina and his team can help. To learn more, visit 920taxes.com to get your free copy of Victor Medina’s Tax Guide, 920taxes.com. That’s the numbers, 9‑2‑0 taxes.com.

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 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 principle. 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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