Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Allen Masri, Founder of Safe Money Income & Insurance Discussing Overcoming the Fear of Outliving Your Money

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Allen Masri’s wife, and 2 children have called sunny South Florida home for 55 years. As a federal employee benefits consultant and previous host of the Safe Money Income Retirement radio show, Allen is a financial educator who has helped people from all walks of life to be well prepared for their retirement years. Allen has made it his mission to educate retirees and those nearing retirement to achieve a secure financial future by protecting their hard-earned money from losses, fees, and inflation. Not one of his clients has ever lost a penny due to market downturns.Learn more: www.safemoneyforincome.comThis material is for educational purposes only and not meant for any financial or tax adviceInfluential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-allen-masri-founder-of-safe-money-income-insurance-discussing-overcoming-the-fear-of-outliving-your-money

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have back with us, Alan Mazri, who's the founder of Safe Money, Income, and Insurance. And we'll be talking about overcoming the fear of outliving. your money. Alan, welcome back to the program. Thank you for having me, Mike. I'm glad to be here.

You know, I don't know the specific stats, but I'm confident that I've seen some articles out there research that outliving your money is one of the biggest fears that retirees have. So get us started with where you start talking with your clients about outliving your money. How can retirees make sure that they have guaranteed income that they're just not going to outlive because we don't want that to be a big fear that keeps people up at night. Well, absolutely. I agree. And that is a big fear.

That is a big fear for, I would say, everybody. And, you know, one of the biggest, you know, fears is, you know, facing the possibility of running out of money retirement. But there is good news. With the right planning and mindset, you know, the fear can be mitigated and even overcome in some cases. So, for example, you know, a person could create a solid retirement plan. And that really starts with a clear plan that includes your income sources, monthly expenses, and how long your savings needs to last. Number one.

Number two, building a guaranteed income. You know, guaranteed income sources can come from several places. One of them is Social Security, a pension, for example, or a fixed index annuity with a, lifetime guaranteed income rider. And, you know, those are the things that give people a steady paycheck for life, and it will reduce the reliance on their savings. Another one is working with a trusted advisor who, you know, can help you avoid making mistakes, adjust your plan as life changes, that's a big one, and, you know, ensure that

your money is working efficiently, you know, for the individual. and this is important, staying flexible. You know, life is unpredictable. You know, being willing to adjust your spending habits, your investment habits, or even just your lifestyle, that can really help stretch a person's resources without feeling deprived. And also focus on what they can control.

I mean, you can't predict the markets, you know, or exact lifespan. but a person can't control their budget, their risk, and their financial habits. And that's really how I would advise people to look at it. You know, that's a really good point. And I think that a lot of times people don't think about like the actual numbers, meaning, okay, in retirement, how much you're going to need? You know, like get a really, really clear and concise answer to how much you're going to need.

And I think that sometimes people really don't quantify that correctly because they just think, oh, well, I'm going to need X number of dollars. But now that they're not working, they're able to spend more money because they're not working and they want to travel more. They want to visit the grandkids or whatnot. So how do you help your clients really polish up that gap of where they are and where they want to be and make sure that that gap is covered? Right. Well, you know, I work with a lot of federal government employees, and they're one of the fortunate few in this country that actually have a pension. Yeah. You know, it's unfortunate.

There's a lot of people that do not have a pension, and retirement is based on a three-legged stool, basically. And each leg is a source of income. Typically, it's a pension. It's Social Security and their 401K or their IRA plans. And, you know, if a person looks at their monthly budget and their expenses, after we make some adjustments knowing the fact that they're going to go in retirement and their income is going to change, there's always going to be that gap between the Social Security and the pension that they earn, you know, for them to be able to maintain their lifestyle. So we use typically a 401k or an IRA plan to fill that gap. And the way we do that is we put somewhere that will guarantee them in income. And another way is what we call laddering.

I always tell people, you know, never put all your money into one annuity. You can always ladder these annuities. So, for example, a person has maybe $300,000. You could do one for $150,000 for $150, and then you would activate income on one of them. And it's enough to maintain your lifestyle as inflation goes up, the living goes up, you have that other annuity, it's still growing. So every year you wait, actually, you know, the account value grows. Not only that, the percentage that is paid out of that principle also increases with

the carrier. So like we talk about, you know, sometimes talk about that 4% rule. But believe it or not, some of these carriers, if you're in your 60s, late 60s, it can be up to 7, 7.2% of the account value. So by laddering these things as, you know, cost of living expenses, you activate the other incomes. And now you're getting not just a social security check, maybe a pension check, but you're also getting a check from one annuity. That's three checks. And they made three, four, five years down the road.

You need more money. Then you activate the income on the other one. You're getting four checks. And on and on. I mean, you could do that with, you can cut that pie up any way you want. And that's typically how I try to make sure that. they have enough to live off of every month. And by not relying on just one bucket or one source, then that diversifies your flow of income,

which is a good thing. Absolutely. I agree. And, you know, you mentioned a little bit ago, too, about writers in certain types of annuities. And I want to talk a little bit about that because I know that that can, some things that writers would cover like long-term care would really factor into the fear of outliving your money because what if I need long-term care? That can be extremely expensive. And if I got to pay for it out of my IRA or whatever other account, that's going to deplete that principle really quickly.

So that would enhance that fear of outliving your money. Talk a little bit about how writers could help alleviate that. I'll tell you what, this is one of the most beautiful things that I've seen in in today's annuities and unfortunately not all the carriers do it because they can't I mean but the best ones they do do it and I'll tell you there's a lot of people out there

that pay for long-term care insurance 20 years 15 25 years and never use it which is you know what I mean you don't get anything back yep like your car insurance if you didn't have a wreck you're not going to get your premiums back you got it so we have with

with some of the carriers today, what's called a wellness writer. Basically, there's no medical underwriting, and here's what they do. It really is amazing. And I have a lot of clients that use them. At the time, they didn't see the value. But when they have to use it, my gosh, they call me in tears. And I get a nice package of cookies and cake sometimes from the clients. And what happens is, and then you also have people that can't afford long-term care insurance.

Right. It can be expensive. Absolutely. very expensive. Or you can't medically qualify. That's another one. So what these carriers do is they attach a rider to the policy. In the event, a person loses two of their activities of daily living.

You know, some companies have a one-year waiting period. Some companies have a two-year waiting period. The reason why they do that is because there's no medical underwriting. So if you're receiving an income from that particular annuity, and you lose two of your activities of daily living, just like long-term care. Long-term care doesn't kick in until you lose those two activities of daily living.

They will take whatever income you're receiving and double it up to five years. But that's not the best part. Here's what I really love about it. If you're doing a joint payout on that annuity, meaning that if the person who owns the annuity passes away and he's receiving income, the spouse continues to get that.

same income, right? So let's assume it's the person, the spouse, who the annuities, not their annuity, but because they're doing a joint. And if they lose through their active daily living, it kicks in for them also. Nice. And when I, and I'll tell you, gosh, the first time a client called me and actually used that, it brought tears to mine. Yeah, because it was so shocking to them that they would qualify and such a huge money savings because any types of long-term care kind of coverage at any level can be just unbelievably expensive. Well, not only that, Mike, it doesn't go to a hospital. It doesn't go to a doctor.

Right. It goes to Venn. And, you know, I think that's another, as you were mentioning that, I was like, oh, yeah, well, now here's your coverage. You got to go to this faraway place. But no, it goes to you, and you can pick who to pay. provide that care, that's another powerful. They can fly out of town and do all, they could do whatever they want with it.

It's their money. It's just there to help them, you know, to really maintain their lifestyle. So let's kind of continue on through the thought of that fear about living your money. What are some of the additional, maybe more, you know, I don't know, advanced or some additional strategies that are available to protect principle during market fluctuations, Meaning I think that sometimes people need to have a, I don't know, kind of like a mindset shift of now I need to get out of the market. I need to get into some of these safe things. But given market fluctuations, that one downturn or that other downturn could really chunk down your portfolio and enhance that fear of outliving your money because you might have had a plan in place.

And then all of a sudden now your amount account balances are down a certain percentage. and now that's going to amplify your fear. What do you do when you work with your clients to help make sure that that aspect is taken care of? Well, again, I mean, I don't do anything that will risk my client's money. So, you know, just, you know, they have to estimate really their retirement expenses. They have to calculate how much they'll need each year for basic housing, food, health care, you know like and also lifestyle choices travel and hobbies

you know you know they have to try to get as many guaranteed income sources that they can like I said social security pensions annuities and a very common role is not to draw no more than a certain percentage

because if they're going to have their money in the markets look it's you just don't know what's going to happen nobody knows what's going to happen but if you're doing something where it's safe, where you know you have some potential growth, where you know that you have a percentage that you could pull out every year or every month without cannibalizing the principle.

Yeah. That's really the only way. There's really not much I can say because, I mean, there's only so many ways you can, you know, slice the pie. It's either you're in safe products, giving you some kind of guaranteed dividend, guaranteed interest rate, where you're just living off the interest rate and not cannibalizing your principal. There's really, unfortunately, there's not much out there.

I mean, that's, you know, that's, you know, I really honestly don't know how to answer any other way than that. Yeah. And like you said about when you started out years ago and we're like, man, my portfolio dipped and then that client came in and said, I didn't have any impact at all. Sometimes people just don't know that this is a possibility. So let's kind of wrap up with this thought, Alan. How can retirees assess whether they've saved an,

enough to last not just to retirement, but through retirement. And I feel like sometimes people go, oh, I'm going to retire at X age, so I need this much money. Yeah, but what if you live 15, 20, 25 years in retirement? You've got to get through retirement. And in fact, if you want to take it one step further, maybe you need to have enough money to even leave to your heirs. So you needed to get to retirement and through retirement. And then do you have some leftover for like legacy planning? So how do you help your clients assess whether they've saved enough and really put a sharp pencil to those calculations? Well, we've got to sit down and take a look at everything they have. I mean, you know, everybody's financial situation is different.

Believe it or not, unfortunately, there are some people, there's really not much you can do other than, you know, what they have to work with. But again, what we try to do is, you know, make sure that they understand that they're, have to be somewhat flexible. I've had clients where I've had to sit them down and we itemize all of their monthly expenses. And I say, look, you know, you can't keep doing this. You know, I'm paying, you're paying your cell phone bill for your kids. You're paying cell phone bills for your grandchildren. You know, you just want to be a car and you know you're going to retire in a year and you're going to pay a $650 monthly payment. You know, this is a, you know, with some people, it's very difficult because they're so used to knowing that they have that money coming in.

their working years that they just spend. And you just got to bring them to the table and to reality and say, look, if you don't do this based on your numbers, what we're looking at here to maintain your lifestyle and what you have coming on a guaranteed basis, you may not have enough money, you know. And, you know, for the ones that do or are able to do more, you know, we look at life insurance. Life insurance is very important. If they want to leave a legacy for the kids, typically life insurance is probably the most favorable, you know, favorable to taxes more than any other product that's out there. And you can, you know, pass on a substantial amount of your asset to your heirs or, you know, whoever you wanted to without them even having to pay the taxes.

Because life insurance, the way it works is if you put in a lump sum of money, which, you know, you have some that you pay just one single premium. No more premiums. It's typically people that have a little bit of money left over that they want to leave to their family. And, you know, for example, if a person has $100,000 based on their age and their health, we can probably get them $150,000 or death benefit, which we increase their network by $50,000. And now if they pass away, it goes to their airs tax free, number one. Number two, you know, it's life insurance. I don't call it death insurance. You know, a lot of people look at life insurance as death insurance.

again, if a person doesn't have the long-term care, or even if they do, typically some of the better carriers today will allow you to use that death benefit while you are still living so you don't deplete the assets of any other money you have somewhere else. So that's another way. But again, it's just, it really depends on the individual. And based on that individual, we sit down, we put something together for them. We open their eyes a little bit to things that they really need. to pay attention to. And we work with them from there because, again, everybody's so different. There are some people that have plenty of money, and there's some people that are really

going into retirement or struggling. So it's unfortunate. You know, you mentioned open your eyes and when you're describing that, maybe think of something. There are some, you know, wonderful, loving retirees that just want to give, give, give, They want to buy their kids and grandkids, anything and everything and, oh, let's go on a family vacation. Let's pay for your new vehicle.

And like you said, you know, paying the cell phone bill. I would suspect that there would be, it would be a great exercise to have someone sit down and track every dime that they spent for like a two or three month period and then analyze every single one of those light items to go, was this something that was exactly necessary? And if you could pull out some of the things that are like, look, you really just can't be paying your grandkids, you know, whatever, Bill. Have you found that that is something that is prevalent? And what is the reaction to kind of help button up some of those leaks? Very prevalent, especially with the women, much more so than the men.

Because, you know, they're different. They care more. I'll tell you, I've seen people pay for other people's life insurance. I've seen people pay for their family members, like I said earlier, cell phones, car notes, or if they even go into debt, they help them pay off some of their debt. Sometimes they need, you know, to help some of their family members with rent. And I always tell them, I said, look, you know, what are you going to do? I mean, you can't, you just can't continue doing it.

Unfortunately, we're people, we have a good heart, and we like to help. help. And then I have some that are on the other side of the spectrum, believe it or not. But the majority of people, they, they will help their family members. And I will sit them down. And I do exactly that. I do a very, you know, an itemized document of everything. I'm talking hair care, dinners, lunches. I mean, we go into everything. I tell them put everything, things you can think of things you can't think of you know i had a client one time that i'll sit with him and his wife and i'm looking at his money i'm like okay you've got all this money come in but you never have anything that's forward in a month so i get a kick under the table right uh-huh she looks at me she goes this guy

spending six hundred dollars a month on scratch-off tickets i'm like oh my god what are you doing so you see all kinds of stuff out there you know yeah the lotto's a big one yeah and and i think that I would venture to say if you were to sit someone down and say, okay, let's just pull up, make that list. Let's pull up your credit card statement and see all the outgoing charges, even your bank account. Let's see where ATM withdrawals were. And I think that probably people would be shocked themselves to go,

wow, I had no clue about spending 400 a month on fast food or whatever the amount is. But if you can find some of that, that will help you to quantify redistributing those funds. into some safe, you know, putting it where it needs to be safe. And then at the end of the day, it just helps to alleviate that fear of outliving your money because you might not need as much as you thought you did because, look, we buttoned up these things. So I think, Alan, this has been so helpful just to address this fear of outliving your money. And there's some quantifiable actual ways that you can do it.

And if someone is interested in learning a little bit more and reaching out and connecting with you, what's the best way that they can do that? You can go to my email, which is allan.safemoney for income.com. I also have my cell phone number. They can reach out to me anytime they want. It's 954-270-8972. And if I don't answer, just leave a message or leave me text. Give me about 24 hours, and I typically call back.

But that is my direct line, and they can call me anytime. We're here to help. We're here to open up eyes. We're here to educate people. make sure they understand there's things out there that they can really benefit from. And we always do what's in the best interest on the client and we base everything on you, not me, not anybody else, your real numbers, your life, your lifestyle. I love it. Well, Alan, thank you so much for coming back on.

It's been a real pleasure talking with you again. Well, thank you, Michael. It was a pleasure here too. Thank you. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.