All Things Retirement
In this week's episode, Maggie sits down with financial advisor Jessie Echard Hill to talk about saving for retirement.
Resources:
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Email Jessie: [email protected]
Jessie’s Bio:
I have one of the coolest jobs on earth because I empower people to take action and pursue their dreams with confidence. Through the use of comprehensive financial strategies, wealth management, and proper risk protection, I work with clients to create meaningful playbooks for life.
I work with business owners, individuals, and families to identify goals and develop sound financial strategies. What separates me from my peers is my dedication to service. I work with my clients throughout all stages of life, to ensure their strategy is meaningful, realistic, and in tune with their values. I believe in consistent, on-going reviews to address the changing needs of my clients & to be a valuable resource during all life changes.
Don’t be shy! If I can be a resource to you or somebody you know, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I always welcome introductions.
Jessie Hill is a registered representative and investment advisor representative of Securian Financial Services, Inc. Securities and investment advisory services offered through Securian Financial Services, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC. Financial Advantage Associates, Inc. is independently owned and operated.
Financial Advantage Associates
1803 Research Blvd, Suite 401
Rockville, MD 20850
#1114486, DOFU 02/15
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To learn more about Maggie and her coaching and speaking services, visit www.maggiegermano.com.
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The theme music is called Escaping Light by Aaron Sprinkle. The podcast artwork design is by Maggie’s dear husband, Dan Rader.
TRANSCRIPTION
Maggie Germano: 00:00:00 Hey there and welcome to the money circle podcast. My name is Maggie Germano and I am your host. Today’s episode is all about retirement savings and planning for the future. This is a topic that I get asked about a lot and it’s something that I think people get really stressed out about and since I’m not a certified financial planner, I don’t always feel super equipped to answer a lot of the specific questions around retirement planning. I, you know, I know the basics around start early and do as much as you can and don’t ever stop, but getting into the nitty gritty of what you should actually be doing and what kinds of accounts to be investing in. That’s a little bit out of my purview sometimes. So I reached out to my personal financial planner and friend and her name is Jessie Hill. She’s a registered representative and investment advisor representative of Securian financial services, inc. securities and investment advisory services offered through security financial services, inc member FINRA/SIPC financial advantage associates is independently owned and operated at 1803 research Boulevard number four zero one in Rockville, Maryland two zero eight five zero.
Maggie Germano: So Jesse and I chatted, like I said, about all things retirement, uh, how to get started, what the different accounts are, how much you should be contributing into those accounts, um, how to plan for longterm care if you might end up getting sick or injured or you know, otherwise incapacitated. We talked, we answered some listener questions about their approach to retirement and how to make things a little less scary. So I had a really great time having this conversation with Jessie because she is super open and super clear and she’s just really genuine and straightforward in the answers and you know, um, this is a topic that can be scary and hard to approach and she really made it easier for me to understand personally. I know that I learned a lot and I know that listeners will also get a lot out of this and feel a little bit more comfortable moving forward and prioritizing their retirement. So I hope you enjoy this week’s episode.
Maggie Germano: 00:02:43 All right. Well, welcome, Jessica. Thanks so much for being on the podcast today. It’s my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, of course. Uh, so tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do. Yeah, so I’m a financial advisor, um, which I think is a broad term.
Jessie Hill: 00:03:00 So specifically I help my clients really achieve their dreams by bringing all of the pieces of their financial planning, um, puzzle together. And, um, really it’s my job to understand my client’s individual circumstance, their, their situation with their finance, with their family, with their goals, with their priorities, and of course their dreams and their passions and the things that they really want to accomplish. Um, and then it’s my job to understand that and to help them create strategies that will, um, align their financial picture to help them achieve those goals. Um, this kind of just gives me an opportunity to, to look over my client’s entire financial picture and really give holistic advice. So one of the ways I really like to work with clients is through holistic, um, comprehensive financial planning as well.
Maggie Germano: 00:03:50 Yeah, I love that because money is not just one piece of the puzzle. It touches every part of our lives. So I think that’s the most important way to approach it.
Jessie Hill: 00:03:58 It’s so true. And you’ll probably hear that in, in our conversation today where, you know, when I get a question about one specific thing, you know, of course we can dive into that, we can discuss that, we can learn more, but without knowing a little bit more about the rest of what’s going on with a client that, you know, it’s really challenging to give advice on building one piece. In my opinion, looking at the whole picture is, is, is very helpful and meaningful when you’re doing a financial plan.
Maggie Germano: 00:04:22 Yeah. That’s how I feel with my clients too. Like I can’t just give you a one size fits all answer to a question. It has to be based on what’s going on in your life and what you actually hope to achieve and those sorts of things. Definitely. Yeah. Well, and so how did you get into this line of work?
Jessie Hill: 00:04:39 Um, you know, I always have been interested in business. I’ve always been good at math, good at numbers. I, I, um, have always been excited about entrepreneurship. And I actually got into this business specifically when a recruiter at my firm was, um, looking to bring on more women into the firm. This is an industry that is male dominated, but what’s really interesting is we’re in a, a place in time when women are making more money than they ever have before. Women own more wealth than they ever have before and they’re expected to continue, um, growing in this way and more assets are being transferred to women as well. So women have more wealth. Um, and it doesn’t really necessarily make sense that there would only be about 10% of women in this industry helping, you know, everybody, women included, um, with, with their financial goals.
Jessie Hill: 00:05:32 Um, so, you know, it was kind of interesting. My firm was looking to bring on more women and just really saw the value in, um, bringing more, more women into this industry. Um, you know, with the approach of taking on a more holistic view. Also, I think, you know, oftentimes women can be really nurturing and helpful in understanding clients. And at the end of the day, you, we can all learn about the financial products and the concepts and all those things. But to be a good financial advisor, you need to feel to connect with your clients. So not to say only women can do that, but, um, that was kind of a goal of my firm was separate number of women and that, that’s how I got into it right out of college.
Maggie Germano: 00:06:13 I love that. And that’s so important cause I know exactly what you mean about it being a male dominated field and not only can that be hard for some people to relate to, but I feel like in my experience it’s a thing that kind of keeps people from seeking out help because they don’t necessarily feel comfortable talking to men about their financial situation. I just talked to someone yesterday about that and um, and I recommended you and a couple other female financial advisors in the area. So, um, I’m glad to hear that your firm is really thinking about,
Jessie Hill: 00:06:47 yeah, we’re actually about 50% women at my firm, which is like pretty unheard of in the financial world, so it’s a pretty cool place.
Maggie Germano: 00:06:54 Wow. That’s great. Uh, and have you felt like there’s been a difference with how you can relate to people based on you being a woman and kind of the experience and the worldview that you bring to the table?
Jessie Hill: 00:07:08 You know, I, that’s, that’s a tough question. I think that every person brings unique skills, right to any work that they do. And at my firm, we do a lot of joint work. I’ve done joint work with other women and I’ve also done joint work with men. Um, so, you know, I will say that some of the dynamics that I’ve had with especially male financial advisors when we work together is we do seem to assume different roles, different positions, if you will. So while, you know, maybe, um, I don’t know, as, as an example, he’s more focused on the rate of return and, and, and the investments in the underlying this and that. And I noticed that we just gloss over a pain point for the client. Right. Maybe something a little more that you might feel like touchy feely. Um, but it’s, it’s just as relevant as their investments in their 401k if it’s keeping them up at night.
Jessie Hill: 00:07:59 Right. Um, so I think that when I work with, uh, male financial advisors, there are times where, where I’m told that, you know how you really did a good job of picking up on this, that that really meant a lot to the client or that that was really important to them. And I would’ve glossed right over that. So I, you know, I think that maybe that that could be carved into male and female roles, but also just really identifying your own strengths and then, um, making sure that you, you know, you offer those strengths to your clients and when there’s some places that maybe another advisor could compliment that, you know, um, I definitely do seek out joint work with, with other financial advisors who compliment my strengths, whether they’re male or female. So, yeah,
Maggie Germano: 00:08:37 I like that because you aren’t just keeping it all on yourself when you know that someone else might bring different strengths, but you’re also bringing your whole self to your clients and bringing the things that you’re good at with your intuition or the way that you listen. Um, I like that. That’s something that
Jessie Hill: 00:08:56 I feel like people probably don’t always associate with financial planning. I think there’s a lot of people don’t necessarily associate with, I used to plan it. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks.
Maggie Germano: 00:09:06 Well, and you touched on this a little bit, um, already when you were saying how women are earning more and are taking more control of their finances, they are getting that transfer of wealth. Um, but can you tell us a little bit more about why you think it’s important for women to be thinking specifically about their retirement planning?
Jessie Hill: 00:09:25 Yeah. Well, so in addition to everything I already said where, Hey, you know, women are making more money, we have more wealth. So there’s more of a need to have solid and meaningful financial planning and financial education. But in addition to all of that, you know, statistically women live longer as well. So it even, you know, whether you’re a single woman or whether you marry a man or a woman or whoever else, um, you know, at the end of the day, most likely the woman is going to outlive the men in her life, right? And so even if you’re in a situation where you know, you’re not making the majority of the money in your income, or you don’t own the majority of, of the wealth in your family, or you’re not the decision maker when it comes to finances, even in that case, in the event that you outlive your husband or you know, other family members who maybe have helped you with this, it’s really important that, that, you know, you have a solid foundation in your own financial plan and that you are educated and have done the saving and done the work that you need to have a successful retirement.
Jessie Hill: 00:10:25 So in addition to living a little bit longer statistically, um, that that also translates to a longer retirement, right? If um, you know, you’re living a few years longer than your male counterparts, then that’s actually a couple more years that we need to save for our retirement. And so if you, if you add in the longevity, the longer retirement, there’s also statistically more of a chance for a longterm care need for a woman, another huge financial piece to include in your financial plan and in your retirement plan. Um, all of those reasons really, um, makes for a good case of, of women needing to, to take ownership of their finances. And at the end of the day I think, you know, women then whoever the more in control you are of your financial life, the more in control of your life in general you feel and the more options that you have. Um, so I mean it’s just very important for all of us to do, to plan for the future and especially women if we, if we do in fact live a little bit longer and have a little bit longer to plan for him.
Maggie Germano: 00:11:24 Yeah, absolutely. That sounds like there’s a lot of different things kind of happening at once. Whether it is just living longer than your male partner or family member. And also so not having their advice or support, but also not having their financial support. Um, and then like you said, having to think about that longterm care, which I’m not sure people always think about that, especially when they’re very young, where it’s like, Oh, well I probably just won’t ever want to retire or I probably won’t want to retire when I’m young anyway.
Jessie Hill: 00:11:59 It’s like, well, you might be forced to and you might need someone to take care of you too. All of those things are yes, so valid. And I mean the other thing I didn’t even mention is I have lots of clients that I meet for the first time when they went through a divorce or some big family change. Right. And I don’t mean to stereotype, but oftentimes I find that a woman, if she was married to a man and had a family that, you know, maybe he took care of some of these decisions for her. And, you know, I’ve had so many women in their thirties and in their forties in their 50s coming in and say, I’ve never even had to open my own bank account. I have no idea what a stock is, what a, you know, these things because it just felt like it really wasn’t their place. Like almost like it’s the boys club or something when it comes to money. Um, so anyway, there could be a countless scenarios, right? But in any case, I think the more empowered women are with financial education and just, you know, having their own financial plan in order just gives them a freedom to live the life they want to live no matter what’s going on around them with the men or other people.
Maggie Germano: 00:12:58 Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And I’m pretty passionate about the divorce conversation too, because it’s not just about whether your partner maybe dies sooner than you, but it’s, you know, if you go through a breakup, which is statistically kind of likely, um, and so if your, all of your accounts are in your partner’s name or they, you were relying on them to save for retirement but you weren’t doing it yourself, you’re kind of potentially out of luck depending on how the divorce shakes out. Um, how can women, uh, protect themselves in that kind of way? Specifically with retirement? Like making sure that they will have their own accounts?
Jessie Hill: 00:13:37 Yeah. Well, a retirement account in general is different from other types of investment accounts where you could have joint ownership. So in any retirement account, it is going to be for one person. So even if you’re married and you make your spouse or beneficiary or something like that, which is pretty common, you know, your 401k at work or your IRA, you know, individually or you know, whatever vehicle you’re using to save for retirement will be linked to one name. So I do have clients where, you know, they’re looking at their finances jointly, which makes sense. They’re married and it’s a household and that’s fine. Everyone does it differently. But many people do it that way. Um, and they’re saying, okay, and you know, together we’re contributing into his Roth IRA. And I’ll be like, well, hold on. You know, don’t you think it would make sense to, instead of doing, you know, 500 a month to his, maybe we do two 50 to each or something like that.
Jessie Hill: 00:14:27 And oftentimes clients say, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I do have some clients that say, well, why? What does it matter? You know, and you know, of course, at the end of the day when you go through a divorce, you’ll have attorneys who can help you sort through all of that, that, but I think no matter what your circumstances, whether you feel like, Hey, you know, my spouse is taking care of this for me, I’m fine. I think one way to just make sure that you’re always taking care of you is to do your own and to take accountability. Really for your own future, regardless of whether you think, um, you know, it’s being taken care of for you. And I always kind of joke with my clients, like nobody calls you, you know, me as a financial advisor and retirement and says I have way more money than we planned and this is not okay. You know, I mean, if you have more money in retirement, nobody’s upset about it. Take more vacations or something like that, you know? Um, so I think that that’s one thing to keep in mind is that even as a, um, as a family, if you’re contributing to a retirement account, you know, why, why wouldn’t you also do it individually if it makes sense for your situation? Of course.
Maggie Germano: 00:15:25 Right. And depending on how much money you have available to you with your IRA example, there’s a limit to how much you can put into one person’s account. So if you wanted to be saving more, having an account for each person also just makes sense financially.
Jessie Hill: 00:15:39 Absolutely. That could be a strategy if we were trying to put more away for retirement. Absolutely. Right. So
Maggie Germano: 00:15:45 say someone has not started saving for retirement at all, how can they get started? And even if they are, feel like they don’t know what they’re doing, they don’t know where to start. How can they get started saving for retirement?
Jessie Hill: 00:15:58 Yeah, great question. As a matter of fact, they, I share this with my clients too. You know, we live in a world where it’s not, um, a lack of information that sometimes makes it hard to make decisions. It’s actually the reverse or there’s so much information out there. Well, what applies to me, what’s relevant to my situation. Right? Um, so just to give some, some general advice there. Um, if you have a group retirement plan at work, that’s often times the easiest place to start, right? So this could be in the form of a 401k if it’s a school or a nonprofit, a four, a three B, if you’ve worked for the federal government at TSP, all the same group retirement plan, we’ll call it. Um, so if you do have a group retirement plan available to you, that can be a great place to start for a couple of reasons.
Jessie Hill: 00:16:39 One is just ease of, of, of signing up. You know, you can typically do this through your benefits department. You sign up and they will ask you to select a percentage of your paycheck or an amount of a dollar amount per paycheck, and it will just be really be done for you. Automatically set it and forget it. You know, they pulled the money. And from a financial standpoint, we call this pay yourself first. It’s an excellent strategy to make sure you save before the money ever touches your bank account you’ve already saved for your future. Awesome. So it’s a, you know that if you have that available to you, that’s a great place to start. If you’ll, you know, you’ll get it automatically taken from your paycheck. So you really don’t have to think about it every month, you know, anything like that. Another incentive for group retirement plans, sometimes the employer we’re off, we’ll offer a match.
Jessie Hill: 00:17:24 So if they want to incentivize their employees to contribute, maybe as an example, they’ll say, Hey, we’ll give you a 5% match. If you contribute 5% of your salary, we’ll also throw 5% in and then you kind of get like 100% rate of return. And I always laugh at my clients. I’m a great financial visor, but I’ll never be able to do not for you. So, so take advantage of, you know, of any gifts from your employer if you can. Um, so there, there can be lots of great reasons to, um, contribute to a group retirement plan. Now some people don’t have a match in their group retirement plan or don’t have one available to them at all. Um, and in that case they might look at doing something on an individual basis. And this is where I kind of mentioned it already, where an IRA may come up in individual retirement agreement account.
Jessie Hill: 00:18:08 And so what this is, is it’s the same concept of your 401k or four Oh three B, except it’s just for you as an individual. It’s not tied to an employer. Um, the, the taxes will work the same way in a traditional retirement account, whether it’s an IRA or whether it’s a group plan, the differences. And you alluded to this already is that you cannot contribute as much to an IRA. So, uh, for 2019, you can do $6,000 per year into an IRA, whereas a 401k you can do 19,000 and if you’re over 50, you can even do a catch up after that. Um, but you can see there’s a little bit of a difference. So to your point, um, if an IRAs is your option for saving for retirement, um, you are a little more limited in that way. Either one of those would be great ways to start saving for retirement.
Jessie Hill: 00:18:57 Um, it is important in financial planning to align the vehicle, the account type that you’re using, align that with your goal. And you know, we say like, if you’re, you know, if you just had three K’s and your number one goal was safety, you probably wouldn’t go buy a Maserati. Right? But at the same time, like if your goal was to drag race on a Saturday night, you’re probably not buying a minivan. They’re not bad cars, right? They’re not wrong, but they’re not aligned for the goal. Right. And so, you know, that’s where it comes to financial planning. There’s not necessarily a right or wrong way to do it, but there’s some huge benefits to aligning your goal with the vehicle you’re using. So why would we use a retirement account instead of a just any other investment account when I’m saving for retirement? Well, there’s some big tax advantages.
Jessie Hill: 00:19:48 So when I contribute to my traditional 401k or my traditional IRA, I actually get a tax deduction in the year that I make that contribution. So in the year that I put 6,000 in my IRA, my taxable income is actually reduced by 6,000 and I, I save on my taxes that year. Furthermore, once my money is in a retirement account, it grows without any taxes. So I don’t have to pay capital gains year over year. We call that tax deferred. Now in this example, in a traditional retirement account, I will pay my taxes on the backend and there’s also a Roth IRA that works the opposite way. Um, so you know, either would be fine, but in any case, I want to take advantage of those tax advantages. And those benefits that I have available to me. So if I’m using money to save for retirement, it would probably make the most sense to really use a retirement vehicle.
Jessie Hill: 00:20:35 Um, now that said, when it’s a retirement account, that does mean that they’re expecting you to save it all the way until retirement, which that age is 59 and a half. So if you do touch your money, these traditional accounts before that 59 and a half, you’ll pay taxes on it, but you’ll also get a 10% penalty on top of everything. So just like I said, you want to align, you know, your, your goal with the vehicle you use, this would be money that you’re not anticipating touching until retirement age. But if you keep it in there that long you’ll, you’ll have, you’ll benefit from the tax advantages on the accounts.
Maggie Germano: 00:21:10 Yeah, that’s really helpful cause I think a lot of people probably don’t understand the differences from the different accounts and that, like you said, there are different names for different accounts depending on where you’re working, but they kind of function the same. So it doesn’t have to be as confusing as it seems. Um, and I hugely agree with you on taking advantage of the employer sponsored plans so that you can get those matches and also get it just deducted from your paycheck. Um, so a question that I’ve heard, I think only from one person, uh, my cousin who doesn’t have a ton of expenses but is making decent money, she just graduated and has a good job. Uh, but she’s still living at home. And so one of her questions was if she’s maxing both her 401k and her Roth IRA, are there other options for her to be saving for retirement or is that kind of as much as she can be saving?
Jessie Hill: 00:22:05 Yeah. Um, you know, everyone is a little bit different as far as what other types of employer sponsored plans are available. So it’s possible that her employer has something above and beyond the 401k may or may not be accessible to her. Um, so if you’re already doing everything you can possibly do at work and then, you know, you’re under the income limits and you’re contributing everything you can to the RA, you know, what else can you do? And in this case, um, there’s, there may not necessarily be another retirement labeled vehicle, but there’s some other vehicles that you could use. Um, so one option would just be, you know, scrap the retirement completely. And I mean, the contributions is after you’ve maxed them out, um, and do a nonqualified account. So additional savings going towards that would be a non retirement investment account and you’re not going to get the tax deduction on that front end.
Jessie Hill: 00:23:01 Like the traditional, you’re not going to get the tax free on the back end, like the RA. Um, but you can touch it before 59 and a half. So it, it serves as a nice intermediate, potentially you could use it as a longterm vehicle as well. So you won’t have as many tax advantages in this type of account. But the trade off is you get to use it. Um, I do have other clients doing some alternative. Um, uh, strategies including using insurance vehicles. So as an example, using cash value, life insurance and um, maybe over-funding the amount of premium and so that you can build up this cash accumulation. There’s trade offs for everything. In that case, you know, you don’t have the restrictions of having to use it for retirement, but you do have an internal cost of, right. So there’s always going to be pros and cons to everything. I would say. You know, if you’re maxing out your 401k and could max out your Roth, I think you’re doing a really great job for retirement. Um, there’s definitely other places such as that non-qualified account or maybe an alternative vehicles such as as cash value, life insurance that you might use. Um, and that could also serve as a bit of an intermediate, but she’s doing a great job for retirement issues, both of those things.
Maggie Germano: 00:24:12 That’s what I think too. I was like, I don’t know if you have to worry about that too, too much, but Hey, you know, go ahead. Save as much as possible. Um, so this is a question that I get from a lot of clients and something that I’ve had to myself. Um, but could you tell us a little bit about, say, you know, someone has been taking advantage of a retirement plan at work, but then they switched jobs. What should they do with that money from that old employer and how can they kind of take that with them?
Jessie Hill: 00:24:43 Um, so you have lots of options. Um, the first it might be available to them and they can just leave it there. Um, sometimes when your balance is a little smaller and employer might kind of kick you out, there might be a threshold so that may or may not be available to you. Um, personally I think it makes sense to, to keep the money penny closer to you personally. Um, so in that case, some other options include, uh, rolling it into your next employer’s, uh, retirement plan if they allow for rollovers so that, that’s another option. And then you consolidate, you know, your old retirement money with, you know, presumably your new contributions going forward. Um, another option is you could cash it out, but if you’re not full retirement age yet, you’ll be paying up penalty and then you will in fact be paying those taxes.
Jessie Hill: 00:25:30 So if you really need the money, you could do that. But you know, if you don’t need the money, probably with, let’s get that option. Another option that I helped my clients with is open an IRA at that point. So, you know, you may have had a 401k through your previous employer. Now you’ve started a new job, you may have a plan available to you and maybe they do offer the rollovers, but maybe you have to wait a while before you can enroll or you know, something like this. So it might make sense to open an IRA, the individual retirement account. And in this case, um, you know, you, you roll over the money from your old 401k. So it doesn’t, it doesn’t, it’s not considered an additional contribution. There’s no limit for how much you can rollover. And now you have this IRA that’s tied, you know, to only your name and your social security number.
Jessie Hill: 00:26:16 And if you have a new employer plan, you probably won’t contribute to this one. You’ll just really leave it there as a placeholder, but you’ll have more investment options. And then you know, presumably if you leave the next job that you have that as sort of a placeholder to beacon consolidating all of your retirement accounts. Um, so you could leave it, you could cash it out, you could roll it to your next one, you could open an IRA. Um, some, uh, some employers even offer like an annuity option with their old plan. Again would be if you were more retirement age, not, not necessarily for younger people, but you have a couple of options.
Maggie Germano: 00:26:48 That’s good to know. So there’s not necessarily one right way to do it. It’s, I think the best thing to remember is just not to forget about that money so that you’re not pulling from it when you do retire.
Jessie Hill: 00:27:00 The only reason why I say my personal bias is not to leave it there because I, I do meet with people who are like, you know, in 20 years ago were teared. I worked there and they don’t have any contact information in that place anymore. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, this is your money. So whatever you do, keep track of it. That’s for sure.
Maggie Germano: 00:27:19 Yeah, I feel pretty strongly about that too. Cause that was money that you contributed. Like you worked for that. You set that aside, that you earn that money. So there’s a reason that you should be able to keep in it was there to help you in retirement too. So yeah, doing that you can to roll it over, you know, putting it in an IRA just so that you know where it is and you have access to it and don’t bring it,
Jessie Hill: 00:27:42 all of those so valid. Just keeping track of it. And then even one step further. What about your overall portfolio and the way that you’re invested? Right. If we have no idea how you’re invested in all of these old retirement accounts, then you know we are kind of doing that thing where we’re just looking at the one piece when we invest in, you know, your IRA or 401k or whatever it might be. So keeping track of it, just so you know it exists is, is super valid. And then also so that you can use it as a, as a piece of your overall financial plan and make sure everything’s working together to help you accomplish your goals. Yeah,
Maggie Germano: 00:28:17 that’s a really good point. Yeah, that’s important to remember. Um, so let’s see. I have a few questions from specific listeners. Um, Jennifer from Atlanta asked as a single woman of color, should I aim for a slightly larger, um, emergency fund or should I be using that money to make ketchup contributions into, um, uh, Ross? Sure.
Jessie Hill: 00:28:44 Um, so emergency reserves is a, is a great topic. Just basically, I, I look at that as, you know, your cash accounts. So when we’re looking at where to put our money, um, you know, the first option is just to hold onto it, so not even invested or lend it or send it and to hold onto it and keep it in cash. And while as a financial advisor, of course I have so many exciting investment ideas and strategies and all of this, but we can’t overlook the very important, um, um, benefit of having liquid cash. So typically emergency reserves, you know, there’s, there’s lots of information about what’s the right amount. And of course it’s very personal, but it kind of blanket rule of thumb is three to six months worth of your living expenses. So if you’re somebody who has very regular income, you know, you get paid the same amount every two weeks, you feel like you have job stability, you know, everything’s nice and consistent.
Jessie Hill: 00:29:37 Maybe that three month Mark makes more sense for you, for somebody who volatility in their income, maybe they get commissions or they’re a business owner or they just have some instability in general. They get sometimes get bonuses and sometimes don’t, or you know, whatever the case it might be, they might lean more towards that six months worth. Right? So having an idea first of what your, what it takes to live your own lifestyle, you know, between your, your rent or your mortgage and, and all the things that you need to survive. Um, having an idea, an idea of what that monthly number is, is very helpful. And then that can help you determine maybe how much emergency reserves you should have. And the idea behind that is, Oh gosh, what happens if you lose your job? You know, we would want a couple of months where you can still live your same lifestyle.
Jessie Hill: 00:30:19 You’re not having to fire, sale your house or you know, make some dramatic change, right? Um, give yourself a little bit of a buffer so you’d have time to, you know, return back to work or find a new job or, you know, it could be anything. Your, your tires blow out on your car, right? And you need that money. Um, and so, so that emergency reserves is there for you for that. So I think, um, so in addition to, you know, your own income and your own lifestyle, some things that might trigger wanting more, um, emergency reserves is sure if you, if you’re single and you feel like, Hey, I don’t have a safety net where, you know, if something happens I can rely on my spouse or I can rely on my parents or I can rely on anybody else. And you, you feel like you’re a little bit more, um, by your solo, you know, in, in making sure your financial goals are taken care of.
Jessie Hill: 00:31:01 Maybe that’s a reason to have more emergency reserves or if you have a big purchase coming up or a big unexpected, you know, volatility coming up or you know, just, you know, some things are changing and shifting. Those are probably reasons to have more in your emergency reserves. Um, again, it’s a pretty personal numbers. Sometimes I have clients that just say, I need $50,000 in cash. Well, okay, if, if having 40,000 makes them feel anxious, then you know what I want. The financial plan says it’s great, let’s have 50. You know, so I think that that, that can be kind of personal, but maybe some of those, um, hopefully that’s a little helpful in, in kind of determining that, that correct amount for you. Um, for the emergency reserves. As far as the catchup contributions, this would be available once you’re past age 50. So as I mentioned in the Roth IRA for example, um, there is a $6,000, um, um, per year contribution limit.
Jessie Hill: 00:31:56 But once you hit age 50, you can do an extra $1,000. Um, and then with the 401k you have 19,000, but you could do an extra 5,000 and your, uh, over that age. So that would be, you know, if, if, if your, um, over the age of 50, you’d have that option available to you to contribute more. Um, as far as, you know, do I want more in my emergency? Do I want more to retirement? You know, this is going to come back of course, to your own personal situation. Right? So if we were running a fee based financial plan, for example, and we projected that this individual person was underfunded for retirement but has enough cash reserves, well in that case, of course we’d probably put that money towards retirement. If, you know, maybe like in your cousin’s situation for example, if we read a projection, I have no idea, but maybe she would show that she’s over funded her retirement, um, and maybe has, you know, hardly any in cash. Well great. You know, we would certainly want to make sure she has enough in cash. So it’s always just really a balance and, and kind of what’s going on in your own life to determine between the two of those.
Maggie Germano: 00:32:59 Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you. That’s really helpful. Um, so last night I had a session with a client who asked how much money she should have in her retirement account for it to be, to show that she was taking the right steps in on the right track and that her, wherever she, her account is hosted, told her that she was potentially behind her peers. And this is a question that I get from people a lot. Like, yeah, I saw this article that said that I’m supposed to have this much by this age and I don’t. And like, do you have basic advice around like what is actually the right amount of money to have that you feel? Does it freak out your clients to the point of just giving up?
Jessie Hill: 00:33:44 You know, I have to say, this is probably the most annoying answer, but the answer is it depends. And everyone hates that answer. But it’s so true. Um, you know, now I have clients who live off of, you know, right. They live with their parents and they have no expenses and they live off $500 a month. I have clients who can’t live off $20,000 a month, you know, I mean, I have our range. So it, depending on what you need to live, your life is going to impact what you need for retirement, of course. And that can be a huge range. So, um, some of the things that, that we would consider. Well, um, when it comes to your retirement, typically we’re not just looking at your 401k or you know, whatever the case it might be. We’d like to know, well, um, you know, do you have any pensions?
Jessie Hill: 00:34:32 Do you have any other sources of income in retirement? Right? Um, are we counting on social security or would we prefer to run a financial plan just independently making sure we’re, we’re independently, um, financially prepared, right? Um, so some of those questions are relevant. Um, the biggest one is going to be how much do you need per year to live? And that is a question that’s really hard for people to answer. Um, a great place to start is having a really clear understanding of what you need to live now and then to factor in what might change for you in retirement. Am I going to go move someplace that’s more expensive? Am I going to go live someplace that’s less expensive? Um, will I say the exact same? Will I have the same house in the same lifestyle and go on the same amount of trips as I do now?
Jessie Hill: 00:35:18 Right. So these are all very personal questions that will dramatically affect that number. What’s my number, right? Um, and then there’s that, that piece that we alluded to earlier and that is what about your health? So if you could tell me exactly what day you’re going to die, exactly how much you need to the penny to live your life on a daily and tell me if and when you will ever get sick. And I can tell you that number. Pretty cool. Pretty close, right? But unfortunately it’s a lot of unknown variables. So I guess the best advice and the best answer I can really give on on that, that big question is sitting down and, and having an honest conversation about what I need to live my life and how that might change in retirement, what my view is. And even that of course, could change beyond what our plan is, right?
Jessie Hill: 00:36:06 Um, and then we factor in a bit for, for the the health and we make a plan for in the event of you needing longterm care and, um, we factor in some inflation in there. Um, you know, presume that, that you’ll invest and assuming you’re invested properly, that the, um, the account will grow over a certain amount of time. And through the financial planning process that I’ve mentioned, you know, we, we factor in these assumptions and we’re able to give people sort of that number or more importantly, you know, how much do you need to save to get to that number? Or if you’re not able to save that much, you know, how much would you need to reduce your lifestyle come retirement. So I know that’s not a very straightforward answer, but there’s just a lot of moving parts with it. And so those are some of the factors that would, um, contribute to the answer of what your number is.
Maggie Germano: 00:36:57 Yeah, and I mean, I agree with you. Like I think people think the most annoying thing I say too is it depends because it really does. There isn’t a magic number and I think with a lot of things in life, but also specifically with money, people are often looking for a magic number because then there is this like, okay, this is the specific thing that I have to do to know that I’m doing the right things. Um, and it’s just not that simple for pretty much everyone. Um, and my, my dad just met with a financial advisor who was showing him, okay, if you wait till this age to retire and take this much from social security and then have this much in your 401k and then do you plan on working a little bit still and bringing in consultant money. But that’s not always something that people think about that like you don’t have to fully retire when it’s time to retire. You can bring in more money even while you’re drawing from your retirement so that you don’t have to pull so much at once.
Jessie Hill: 00:37:56 That’s, I mean, that’s a great point too. And one of the questions when I am going through this financial planning process with my clients is what does retirement look like to you? Right. I mean, some people never plan to stop working, but we have to be realistic about what your health allows, what you’re, this is, you know, and these things. Um, but some people, you know, the minute they get the okay from their financial planner, they’re done and they’ll, you know, never work in any capacity again. And then you have, you know, a huge range in the middle. My mom is a fun example. She just retired in July and um, she discovered yoga in her 50s and by the time she turned 60, she had done her yoga teacher training and then by the time she retired, she is all blown teaching yoga. I’m like a full time basis.
Jessie Hill: 00:38:41 I mean, she has more classes, but I, I can’t believe how much she’s teaching. And you know, she never planned on that, but she found something that really just lit her up and made her excited. And you know, frankly, that comes into a bigger conversation of what does retirement look like for you? Do you want to go home and have nothing necessarily that you have to do? And my mom didn’t want that. She wanted a, you know, a place to be people relying on her. She wanted connection with the community. So she found that through yoga, which conveniently pays her as well. And you know, sure she doesn’t make me like as much money as she did and um, you know, her working years. But to your point, you know, every bit that you don’t have to draw off of your assets is more, you know, that she has available to her later on or for something exciting thing that she wants to do in her retirement. So it looks different for everybody. Definitely.
Maggie Germano: 00:39:31 Yeah. I really love that. And that’s something that’s been coming up more and more with people that I’ve been talking to of like what is that second or third or fourth career that you want to have post retirement where maybe it wasn’t something you could survive off of when you were younger, but now that you have this retirement money you can pull from, it’s this new thing that you can explore and that can be really exciting. Yeah, absolutely. So you had mentioned a couple of times with illness and longterm care. And thinking about that, uh, in your retirement, how do you recommend people actually prepare for potentially needing longterm either medical care because they’re sick or just general care because maybe they can’t take care of themselves?
Jessie Hill: 00:40:18 This is a very relevant conversation. Um, especially with my women clients, but really with, with all clients when they’re putting together their retirement plan. Because, you know, as we said before, okay, well what’s that number I need for retirement? Great. We figured out how long your retirement’s going to be with our best guests, how much you’ll spend, you know, with our best guests. Um, you know, presumable market returns with our best guests. You know, we’ll, we’ll put all these things in place with our best possible assumption. And then if you need longterm care or help with activities of daily living, the cost of that is, is so great that it can, for many people really wipe out all the planning and all those answers we thought we had come up with. Right. So it can, it can be very devastating to a financial plan. It’s so expensive and so scary that many people choose to just not think about it at all.
Jessie Hill: 00:41:12 Um, well, you know, frankly, there’s not like anything else. One right way to do it. And typically just like with retirement, we’re not using one vehicle to do it if it tends to be a little bit of a mix. Um, so some of the, the mix would be self-insuring. Um, oftentimes people don’t create really a plan. They just save as much as they can in the event that, that they need care. They’re going to pull off their savings and they’re going to really hope that they saved enough to make it happen. People who are really wealthy, um, oftentimes self-insuring is, you know, a very reasonable way to do it if they have the assets to do that. Um, the other extreme would be if you are completely impoverished, um, and have no assets, you could apply for Medicaid. And of course those benefits wouldn’t be maybe as good as something you could get on your own.
Jessie Hill: 00:42:01 But you know, certainly that’s kind of, uh, that that is one way to go about this. And then for many people who fall in the middle who aren’t filthy rich and who aren’t impoverished, right? Many people fall in this place where we really need to create some kind of a plan, some kind of a strategy. And so there’s really, from what I see, two kind of main ways that I actual advisers are going about this. One would be a standalone longterm care insurance policy. So just like a disability insurance policy or just like even your car insurance policy, it would be something that you would pay for every month. And if you never need it, you never use it. So that can be a little hard for people to stomach. Cause they’re like, wait, I’m paying, you know, hundreds of dollars a month in premium for this longterm care.
Jessie Hill: 00:42:47 And if I never get sick, you know, that’s money that could’ve gone to my retirement account or you know, to all these other things. That being said, you know, that’s probably that longterm care, standalone policies probably going to have if you do need care, the best bells and whistles, right? As far as, you know, cost of living adjustments. And, and, and other kinds of features perhaps, um, typically you would purchase a policy like that where you would determine the pool of money. I have clients that have really old policies that have unlimited benefits. And if you have that someone at labs, cause they don’t make those anymore. Um, because now they know how much it costs when someone has a longterm care event. Um, so you might choose, you know, a $300,000 policy or you know, some amount of money and you would be able to pull from that in the event that you needed.
Jessie Hill: 00:43:31 Longterm care needing longterm care is, um, basically it means that you’re not able to do two out of six of your activities of daily living, which include like eating and transferring and bathing and consonants, these kinds of typical living activities. Um, so you know, that that’s kind of the more traditional way to, to save and insure against this. Um, and then now what we’re seeing a lot of, um, a lot of advisors add into a financial plan are these hybrid policies where what they’re doing is taking permanent life insurance policies. So an insurance product that’s already designed to pay a lump sum upon death. And what you’re doing is you’re adding a rider to it that says, Hey, if I need longterm care, let me access my death benefit early. So it’s a similar concept where you have that pool of money, right, where I bought a $250,000 policy or you know, whatever amount.
Jessie Hill: 00:44:27 And typically the way that these work is, you would be able to access 4% of it, um, per month. So in the event that I have a $200,000 policy, you know, I can take 8,000 a month, something like that. And there’s a little bit of flexibility in there because the insurance company is effectively already prepared to pay all that money. Um, they’re just doing it a little early. So, um, you know, if you ended up using half of it for longterm care, great. You passed the other half onto your areas upon your passing. If you never need longterm care, you know, you, you just got the life insurance anyway and it passes on. So that’s a little bit of a hybrid way to do it. Um, which I think is, it’s pretty popular right now because of the many goals people have are retiring and you know, short term goals, long term goals, everything and still wanting to do something, uh, you know, for longterm care.
Jessie Hill: 00:45:13 And what I would say, and you kind of mentioned it with retirement of like not scaring your clients. I mean if we look at the statistics of how much a longterm care event costs, it is terrifying. It’s, it’s a lot of money. Um, so, you know, we’re looking at a holistic plan. Our only goal isn’t longterm care. Maybe you probably have other things that we’re trying to do. So, you know, we give advice based on the whole picture. We’d certainly address the longterm care piece and we cover it the best we can. And you know, back to what I was saying originally, sometimes it does become, Hey, let’s cover half of the, the risk with a longterm care policy. Maybe the hybrid or whatever makes sense and we’ll do a little extra saving to, to self insure some of that. Oftentimes it ends up being a little bit of a, a mix and match of different strategies to help clients solve for this risk. Yeah.
Maggie Germano: 00:46:02 Yeah. So it sounds like, obviously depending on your situation, just like with anything, it depends. Um, but it sounds like having someone who knows what they’re doing, giving you advice and who can look at your financial situation
Jessie Hill: 00:46:17 and help you figure out what will make the most sense and what you can afford and what will actually protect you in this scenario. Definitely. And I would say, you know, the sweet spot for looking at longterm care planning is about 45 to 60, maybe 45 to 55. That’s, you know, people, when they, when I bring up longterm care at 45, they’re almost offended, right? I’m totally healthy and young and that’s true. And that’s actually why we want to get you the coverage. Now, you know, I’m, so that’s my one piece of advice. Absolutely. Maggie, you know, you’ll want to talk to somebody who understands the risk, who understands it in context of your whole plan. Um, as well as, um, you know, you, you, you’d like to address it before it’s too hard to get, get the coverage as well.
Maggie Germano: 00:47:06 Yeah. That was something I was thinking about when you were giving all the examples. Like if you went with the permanent life insurance policy, you wouldn’t be able to qualify for that when you were like already getting sick and you were older or if you did it would be so expensive that it wouldn’t necessarily make sense. So yeah, like you said, starting early is better. It’s going to be cheaper and you’ll apply, you’ll qualify and be able to get it more likely. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean my husband, you helped my husband and me get life insurance for ourselves too and we’re in our early thirties pretty healthy and not planning on having anything happen but now that we’re married and we own a house and uh, you know, I’m self employed so his income is a huge part of our survival. Um, having that life insurance for both of us cause we’re both bringing benefits to the table and in the relationship. Having that is like, on one hand we’re like, Oh, we have to spend like so much on this every month. But on the other hand it’s like, well, if anything really tragic happened, at least we wouldn’t have to then be freaking out financially because we’re already having to deal with the tragedy. We don’t want to have to worry about like paying our mortgage or paying for a funeral or getting buy in that kind of way.
Jessie Hill: 00:48:23 Exactly. And you know, it’s, it’s awesome, you know, given your, your career and your insight into, you know, the impact of that is huge. But oftentimes, you know, kind of go back to the, what we were just talking about, oftentimes people don’t really think about this until there’s a problem. Right? And then it’s, Oh gosh, well now it’s a little late, right? When you’re young and healthy, why would I, you know, pay for insurance. Right. It doesn’t, it seems like a counterintuitive, but, um, you know, I have so many clients where exactly we put the insurance in place when they really got and then maybe something happens to their health or you know, 10 years down the line they decide they want to apply for more and they can’t believe how much more expensive it is, you know, compared to what they were able to put in place when they were younger. So, uh, not to be morbid, but you’re never going to be as young and healthy as you are today. Like most people get older as the time goes by and oftentimes, you know, health doesn’t get better sometimes, but, um, you know, the, the earlier the better when, when it comes to insurance
Maggie Germano: 00:49:22 for sure. Yeah, I definitely agree. Um, so I have another, like a final question from a listener and this is from Emily in Denver. Um, she sounds like she was a little frustrated when she wrote this, this question. And so she said retirement funds, mutual funds in particular, there are so many, how on earth do you decide which to invest in and through what platform? Uh, she mentioned who she currently invest through online, but that, uh, and that it has low fees, but when she’s searching there for the different index funds and target date funds, she’s having a really hard time figuring out what’s run by who and who to trust. So do you have some advice on that?
Jessie Hill: 00:50:06 This kind of comes back to what we mentioned before where we don’t live in a world where there’s like too little information, right? It’s quite the opposite. There’s so many options. Gosh. Like where do I start? Um, so, and I, you know, I answer this question from my clients all the time and before getting caught up in the details of which mutual fund or index fund or you know, any of those kind of nitty gritty details. First, let’s make sure that you have the correct vehicle, right? But you don’t have your minivan on the start line of your drag race, right? So before even getting into the nitty gritty of what to invest in within your account, let’s make sure you have the correct accounts. So, um, you know, for many people that might be a retirement account, that might be a Roth IRA, that that might be the, the non retirement account, or maybe it’s a college savings account for your kid, right?
Jessie Hill: 00:50:48 So whatever you’re using it for, you know, first start there, let’s make sure that it’s the correct vehicle and once we have the correct vehicle, now it’s time to decide, I put my money in this, you know, Roth IRA or nonqualified account or whatever it is, what do I actually invest in when she brought up a really great point where, Hey, I’ve got these really low fees, but I’ve got like no help. You know, nothing wrong with doing it yourself. But I will say it does involve or that you have to do yourself, right? So, you know, when you work with a financial advisor, and maybe I’m biased on this, right, um, you know, their job is to do that homework and to determine, you know, which mutual funds are going to be a good fit, which ones are going to be a bad fit, which index is what ETFs, you know, what stocks, all of those pieces.
Jessie Hill: 00:51:30 And they will actually make it very simple for you and say, here’s what I think you should invest in. And um, you know, of course you can have a dialogue back and forth. Maybe there’s some categories you don’t want to invest in or maybe that doesn’t work for you for whatever reason. But that’s that financial advisor’s job is to bring the product and the strategy to you as the client once they understand your situation. If you decide, you know, I don’t need help with a financial advisor, I can totally do it on my own, that is fine. But you’ll want to make sure that you do that due diligence on your own because there are a lot of wonderful mutual funds and there’s a lot that are so great as well. Right? Um, so, um, if you are doing this on your own, there’s a couple of resources out there such as morningstar.com or Yahoo finance for example.
Jessie Hill: 00:52:15 Um, just a few off the top of my head, but where you’re able to get, um, third party information about a specific mutual fund or an index fund or whatever it is that you’re looking at. And so you’ll want that ticker symbol for mutual fund. It would be probably five characters long and you could tap type that ticker symbol into, you know, one of these third party recording places and learn all about it from what it’s invested in. What is its, um, w w what’s its intention? Is it a growth fund? Is it a value fund? Is it in, is it invested internationally? Is it domestic? Is it fixed income? Is it equities? I mean, all the makeup of that fund. You’ll also be able to learn who’s that mutual fund manager. Um, a mutual fund. It, I know that’s a word that’s kind of thrown out a lot, so I’ll just quickly explain what that is, is really a basket of lots of different companies.
Jessie Hill: 00:53:08 So rather than you as an investor deciding I want Johnson and Johnson, I want under Armour, I want, you know, general motors, whatever you have, you buy a mutual fund and that mutual fund manager is picking all of these different companies and it’s their job to assess, you know, do we want to overweight and Microsoft, do we want to, you know, whatever the case it might be. So you’re trusting that mutual fund manager to um, to make those investment decisions. And by looking up that fund, you’ll be able to see, okay, is that mutual fund looking for growth? Are they looking for the more value companies? Are they, um, you know, fixed income or you know, any of those things. So, so checking out, um, the information on that specific fund using that ticker symbol will, will give you a lot of that information. Um, specifically on Morningstar, something that’s cool about that, um, um, reporting is that you’ll see a Morningstar rating, which can be helpful in indicating the risk versus reward.
Jessie Hill: 00:54:03 So it can have up to five stars if you see a fun with five stars. With that indicates is that it’s taking a below average risk and receiving above average returns. So that’s what gets it. The five star rating. If you see a three star, we can assume pretty average risk, average return. If you see a one star fund, it’s inverted, right? More risk and below average returns, right? So not necessarily saying it’s a good or a bad fun, but it’s just evaluating how much risk is it taking for the amount of return you’re getting. Um, and the only thing I would caution a do it yourself or on this is that these change all the time, you know, you have, um, funds that are five-star funds and then, you know, maybe the mutual fund manager changes or something happens, right? And it could change.
Jessie Hill: 00:54:48 So, um, in addition to, you know, doing that due diligence and doing the work to determine, you know, what investments do I want to invest in, you’ll want to regularly review them as well. So, um, a little, I would say argue with quite a bit of work for a do it yourself, but there’s plenty of people who, who love to do that and they get really excited about learning about all the companies. So it’s so great. Um, I even have clients myself who we carve off a piece of their portfolio for them to manage on their own cause they just like that and that’s fine. Um, but you know, if you don’t want to dedicate lots of time, which I would argue is required, um, to, to, to make these decisions, um, you might consider working with an advisor, which, you know, yeah, it’s, it’s probably not going to be as, as inexpensive as you know, if you’re doing it yourself. Um, but perhaps their advice and guidance, you know, not only gives you that peace of mind and kind of frees you up of the stress of it, but it could even have the impact of giving you a better rate of return. Um, if you’re more properly invested, you know, potentially. So, um, those are some ways that you could definitely do it yourself or, um, work with a financial advisor would probably be helpful to,
Maggie Germano: 00:55:56 yeah, that’s super helpful. I’ve never heard, I mean I’ve heard of Morningstar, but I didn’t realize you could use that as a way to compare the different funds and so that, that breakdown was super duper helpful. Um, so if someone realized like after hearing all of that, no way, I don’t want to do that myself, I will do want to hire someone. Uh, how do you recommend choosing someone that
Jessie Hill: 00:56:19 so that the client can trust and feel good about working with? Yeah, definitely. So, um, I would definitely be interested in learning. How does my advisor, how do they work with clients and how do they get paid? Um, this is a relevant conversation because some advisors will work off of commissions. Maybe they have a certain lineup of products that they can offer. And once they, um, uh, you know, line up a product for a client, they get paid a commission in that way. Um, other times advisors are getting paid fee based, whether that’s to run a financial plan or to manage the assets. Um, and some advisors can do a mix of both. In my situation, I can do a mix of both. Um, and basically depending on the client’s situation and depending on what makes the most sense, I will recommend one of the relationship options.
Jessie Hill: 00:57:15 Um, it’s relevant to know because, um, you also, you know, especially in in the commission space would be interested in knowing, well, is that advisor independent or do they only have access to that one company’s products? So that was something that was really important to me and getting into business was, um, being an independent advisor. So I, I’m not biased towards one company or another. Instead I learned about my client and say, great, this is the best fit. Let’s go this way. Um, it would just be probably be relevant to know, you know, does my advisor have to use this one company? In which case, you know, do I maybe want to shop around? Um, that kind of thing. Um, so those would be some pieces that that would be really helpful. Um, you know, registered reps, um, I would definitely be working with a registered rep.
Jessie Hill: 00:57:59 I have had a horror story of, uh, a friend who worked with a buddy who is a hedge fund manager or some kind of thing. He lost his money. I don’t know exactly what the situation was, but, um, you know, if you’re working with a registered rep, they have a broker dealer who’s, uh, you know, doing the background checks and the compliance and making sure that the, you know, everything’s up to date with the fiduciary rules change and then this and that. You know, I’m equipping them with all of that information. So I think, um, you know, certainly a registered financial advisor would be a great start. Um, learning, you know, what’s their relationship with their company? Are they independent or, or is that what they’re, you know, required to use and then understanding, you know, how is it that they get paid? What are my options there?
Jessie Hill: 00:58:40 Um, I think all of those would be really great questions to, to learn from your financial advisor when you’re interviewing advisors. Yeah, those are great questions. And I, I hadn’t heard about the registered rep part of it, so that’s really important to keep in mind too. Um, so as we’re kind of wrapping this up, is there anything else you’d like listeners to know about retirement savings in general or you know, that sort of thing? Yeah, I mean I think this has kind of been woven into everything that we’ve been saying. But you know, my approach to financial planning is that it’s all about balance. It’s not that there is a right or a wrong way to do it, it’s that we need to make sure it’s aligned. That’s really all we’re looking to do. So, um, you know, if I had like 30 seconds to give financial advice, I would say save live off of less than you bring in always. You know, save for retirement as soon as possible. Um, create a strategy for any debt and make sure that you’ve addressed the risks that could potentially knock your financial plan off of its feet. Um, you know, if you do those things, if you save live below your means, um, you know, address the risks and pay off debt. Yeah. You know, everything else we can kind of tweak from there, I would say.
Maggie Germano: 00:59:55 Yeah, that’s really helpful. And that’s, that’s pretty simple. It’s going to be different for every person, but as long as you’re following those different pillars that you know, you’re on the right track. Yeah. Great. Great. So how can listeners work with you if they’re interested in reaching out? Yeah,
Jessie Hill: 01:00:11 I always start with a no obligation complimentary consultation for anyone who is interested. Um, and that’s an opportunity for them to ask me those kinds of questions. Right. How do I work with clients and kind of how does, how does the structure of everything work? But it also gives us an opportunity to learn more about each other. So all of my, it depends. Answers would have a little bit more fuel behind them, right? When I, when I can learn a little bit more about a client situation. So we start with this consultation about an hour, um, it can be over the phone or in person, um, for us to learn more about each other. And basically by the end of that consultation, I’ll have next steps, Hey, you know, I think we could work together in this way or Hey, you know, you can just take care of these few things and be pretty good on your own.
Jessie Hill: 01:00:55 Um, and so after that consultation, you know, we may decide to, uh, to work together. Um, and I would propose how and kind of what that looks like and what that arrangement looks like. Um, so I mean, the best ways to really reach out to me would be email or phone. Um, my email address is Jesse,J , E S S I E at been AB inc com, so that’s like financial advantage inc com. Um, and my number is (301) 610-0071. I’m sure you’ll share all of this anyways. Um, but those are probably the, the best ways to get in touch with me. And um, and then we would just work on setting up a, a complimentary consultation from there.
Maggie Germano: 01:01:34 Wonderful. And I will definitely share all that information in the show notes so folks can reach out to you. But thank you so much for taking the time to chat today. I know I learned a lot of new things during this conversation, so I’m sure the listeners have gotten a lot out of it too. So thank you very much.
Jessie Hill: 01:01:50 Uh, thank you. I think what you’re doing is awesome, really, really awesome and needed and it’s really an honor to be on this podcast with you and to, to connect with you in all ways to help empower women, especially with their finances.
Maggie Germano: 01:02:04 Thank you. That’s great.
Maggie Germano: 01:02:06 Thanks for tuning in to the money circle podcast this week. Make sure that you rate, review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. It might not seem all that important, but subscribing and rating actually helps to get the money. Circle podcasts in other people’s ears. If you’d like to get more connected with money, circle or with me. There are lots of ways you can do that. To join the free Facebook group, visit facebook.com/groups/money circle group to stay informed of any upcoming events, subscribe to my weekly [email protected] slash subscribe if you’d like to join the virtual money circle membership group, visit Maggie germano.podia.com/inner-circle to learn more about my financial coaching services, my speaking and workshop offerings, or just to read my blog, visit Maggie germano.com you can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter at Maggie Germano. Thanks so much for listening. Bye.
