Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Jack Peregrim Founder of Fourth Quarter Advisors Discussing 3 Retirement Strategies Nobody Talks About

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

Jack Peregrim is the founder and President of Fourth Quarter Advisors and he has a long career in business and strategy including his 30 years as the founder and owner of PARAGON Development which focused on providing strategic management services to many Fortune 50 global corporations.On his ‘retirement’ he personally recognized the complexity in Social Security options as well as Medicare. And, there is very little support and education available other than that offered by individuals and organization driven by revenue received for selling products and services.Jack and others are trained and committed with Certified Financial Fiduciary® designations. And, we are volunteer presenters for workshops sponsored by a number of non-profits which are non-profit 501(C)3 organizations and support programs in a wide range of retirement issues.Jack is a Certified Financial Fiduciary ™ in addition to his involvement in numerous professional and personal organizations.Learn More: https://www.fourthquarteradvisors.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-jack-peregrim-founder-of-fourth-quarter-advisors-discussing-3-retirement-strategies-nobody-talks-about

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 this Jack Peregrim, who's the founder of fourth quarter advisors, and we'll be talking about the three retirement strategies nobody talks. about but should. Jack, welcome back to the program. I always a pleasure to talk with you, Mike. Yeah, you know, I always love hearing things like, hey, people shouldn't understand this, but they really don't. So that really clarifies some powerful topic. So let's dive right into this topic.

Why do most retirement strategies fail over time? It's really lack of education, information, knowledge, and the fact that we expect our retirement years to be just an easy transition from our income producing years. It's just that one day we don't have to go to the office and our time is different and very little changes. And the fact is that there are some huge changes that occur. Your retirement years are very different and need different strategies, different approaches. And unfortunately, that means you could get hit with things because you weren't aware of them if you haven't been informed and educated on what you're going to be singing. It kind of makes me think of what you just mentioned. There are some of the conversations

I've heard and read over the years too. It's like during, your working years, you're striving and grinding and saving and accumulating. And it's kind of like climbing that mountain. But then when you get to retirement age, now you're at the top. Now you need to get back down the mountain safely and decumulate in the best possible way. And some of the worst mistakes of mountain climbing are coming down the mountain. Oh, absolutely. I wouldn't look at it coming down the mountain as just being going from a mountain to a desert.

and you were prepared for one environment and you're just in a completely different environment, whether it's cold environment versus a hot environment. You need different tools, clothing, different equipment. It's amazing how much it does change. Yeah. So let's dive into these retirement strategies that nobody talks about but should. What is that first strategy? Well, I'm going to start with one that's, and really nobody is talking about it, but it's rebalancing your portfolio.

And while I have been, in my income years, I've been putting funds aside hopefully. And some of the funds are in things such as Social Security, because I'm contributing to an account that's an investment, it's in my name. But I'm also contributing to 401Ks and 403Bs and, my gosh, 403A's and, my gosh, 403A's and 457. There's a lot of letters and numbers than seps. But that just means I'm deferring taxes on those, keep my taxes low because my income is with high because I have income. So, but now I've got this accumulate, these accumulated investments. And the best practice for those during our income years is typically to let the market. ride them up because nothing over any long and the key is long period of time,

nothing goes up like our stock market does. Our stock markets, our mutual funds. So we want those to go up. And while we're working, well, we don't worry about the risk of a downturn because we're living on our income. You know, we complain. 2009. Our funds were down 35%.

Oh, boy, boy, but they went down 30% during Y2K nine years earlier, and they came back. So we just, that's our attitude. We have 30% decreases in 91, the inflation bubble, and another one in 81, and the gas crisis in early 70s. So we know every 10 to 15 years, we're going to have huge decreases. But when we're working, we're going to let those funds come back, knowing they're going to grow faster than anything. else in the short terms that they're increasing. But when we retire, we can't do that. And the reason for that, I mean, there's...

We're closer to retirement age. We don't have the runway. We do not have the income. And we end up using those funds. So we're now going to draw down on those funds. And if we have them in... retirement accounts, IRAs, 401ks that are pre-tax, the government forces us with required minimum distributions to draw down on them. So there will be forced drawdowns and chosen drawdowns. And the key there is if we have any downturn where the overall value of the asset decreases

and we're drawing down at the same time, we don't recover. We don't do what happened to us in the past. A big reason we fall into that trap is that nobody tells us about this. And we hate, then there's a lot of bit of psychology. It's between our ears. Number one, who are we listening to? We're listening to people that had us in a position. They got fees for it. They're getting a benefit for it by keeping us at the higher risk positions where we can get this increase.

Yet when we have a decrease, we can't recover now. But they don't want us to change because, oh, we'll just a little bit. But they don't want us to change because they're getting fees for what they're doing for us and they're living on their fees. And another reason is just we don't want to change. We're used to something. And we don't want to change until it's forced on us, which means we wait till we lose the money and then we make the change.

And that's too late. Because you've been in that groove for so many decades of building and growing and and watching for the big hits. But at some point, you need to make that shift to protect your assets and have accounts where you're not worried about that volatility. But yeah, to your point, it's like you wish people would learn the lesson well ahead of time, but sometimes they got to feel the sting first. And we're not prepared for it. You can get any decent retirement planning book historical or current, and they're all going to say you should have a large portion of your assets out of risk of loss at retirement. However, nobody's emphasizing that.

And when we're looking to retire, we've been working our butts off, to be honest. And we've done that 40 years. We want to retire and just not go into work in one day and go on a vacation and buy a boat or do whatever it is that our hobbies or our loves, you know, that we've had as a passion to do. The last thing we want to be doing is going getting a book on retirement transition issues. That's the last thing we want to do. So we just don't do it. And there's a very practical impact to it.

And an example to give you is if I have $100 and there's a downturn of 20%, well, I'll always, you know, in the past, that's going to recover. It's going to go back to 100. But to go from 80 to 100, that's going to 25%. And in the past, it will go back up to 25%. But now I don't have income, so I draw down on those funds. So now I go down to 80% that it's just lost money. Now I take out 5%. I'm down to $75.

Now I have to go up 35% from there. And I'm trying to go up, but then I have to take another 5% out to draw down in the next year or whatever it is. And I never will even approach getting back to where I was. we can't let it recover. So you're better off keeping the base high. And even if you don't earn as much as you're drawing down, I'm still starting at 100 to draw down rather than 75. It's just practical and it's the way it is going to work for you in retirement

and you need to rebalance portfolios and do it before you think you need to. That's a real key. That's huge. So strategy one, rebalancing. Let's move on to strategy two. What is the second strategy that you're saying that needs to be considered, but not many people know about or talk about? Well, people just assume that when we're in retirement, we'll be paying less tax. And one of the things that really excites me, you know, we support people through education. We're not looking for compensation. So we have to get excited. excited about things that aren't compensation. One of them that excites me is that we can show people

how they can pay less taxes than our governments wanted to take from them. We feel that people work 40 years. They deserve to have those funds in retirement and not have them diluted and pulled out to go to the government. That should be used for their retirement and passed on to their beneficiaries. Now, we just assume that our taxes are going to be less because, well, we won't have income. But we're not doing projections on what taxes we really will have. Again, we're going by an assumption. And, you know, the word assume, you can make an ass of you and me when you do that. Yep.

We want to, it's an old adage, but we want to now clarify what our taxes are going to be in retirement. And if the taxes are not going to be lower that we thought they were, we can do things to mitigate that and do things in our best interest. But if we don't know that's going to occur, we'll never do anything. So one of the things we like to do is 10, 15 year projections and somebody retires. Okay, the income isn't there. Oh, do they get a pension that kicks in? Well, let's take that and let that into the equation. What about their Social Security?

Okay, well, let's add in what they can get out of Social Security. Let's take a look at their pre-tax funds. And what year will they have to start taking out money from that? And what's the percentage they take out? And how does that percentage change? And now that's going to be declared income that affects my taxes. If I have after-tax money, I have capital gains. do on that. I may not have been needing that money. So I have incredible amount of tax burden

in capital gains in other funds that I have. And I'm not even getting into the non-physical assets, whether you own your home or you have rental units. There's so many different factors that are going to affect your taxes. And one of the things that is an incredible tool is to do high level at least projections on income I'll be declaring per year over a period of time. That will tell me which years I may have lower tax rates, which years I have higher ones. What I want to do is flatten those out. I don't want to pay zero or 10% on taxes and later on my life pay 25%. I would rather pay some of the funds instead of paying $12 because I don't want to pay 25% on those in the future.

I want to know that I will always be better off if I pay my taxes when I can pay them at a lower rate. So that's a real key. I think just looking at at high level, we know we will have to pay taxes on a lot of the funds we have. Our key is if we are smart, knowledgeable, and educated, we'll pay the taxes when it's less. I love to consider the pre-tax accounts, the qualified funds, the IRAs, 401K, SEPs, all those letters and numbers and initials. That just means you have to pay tax on 100% of those funds. Yep.

And you know, you don't think a lot of times people sometimes think. It's an IOU and it's a blind IOU because we don't know what taxes will do in the future and what exact bracket or tax rate. But I think that sometimes when you mentioned to people or if you were to stop 100 people on the street and say, will taxes be higher in the next 10 years? Logically, the answer would be yes. And in my uneducated opinion, it's tied to two things, our federal deficit and government spending. and we know that the deficit probably will never get tamed, and we know that government spending probably never will get tamed. So the only way they can close those gaps are to increase taxes.

Do we think that taxes are going to go up? Probably yes. So if we plan for that way and something miraculous happens, then you're in good shape. Oh, yeah. We know that our, here's one thing that we do know. Our taxes won't be less than they are today. $40 trillion in debt.

one third of our budget it's huge deficits every year but one third of our budget is paying interest on the debt and the debt is increasing so we know the taxes will never be lower and if we look at what our taxes are each year and even if we assume they won't go up

you'll find that you'll be pushed to higher brackets in different years and just pay higher percent, even with the taxes levels we have today. Now, we want to hedge against the future. You're right. I would bet everything I have that five years from now, our tax rates will be considerably higher than they are today, not just based on the marginal increase in whatever we're declaring is income,

but they're going to have higher percentages in all of them as well. I would bet strongly on that. So let's now kind of see where we're standing here on these retirement strategies. Number one was rebalancing. Number two, taxes will be higher, planned for it. What's number three? What's strategy number three we need to be aware of? Well, I'm focused on three out of about 20 things, but I want to focus on.

Yeah, the top three. Now, the top three and one that really, I love talking about this, it's the fact that we never knew what our money needs to do for us that's in our best interest, our family's best interest. What we have done throughout our lives is just try to improve our yield. If one thing is better than another, we move to the thing that's better. If I'm getting 2.6% in a money market funded one bank and another's offering 3.17, I move that money. I pat myself on the back. I did better. That's fantastic. I go to my advisor and my advisor says, look, let's review where you are. And I hear something else you can do that you're not doing today. And you say, well, is that better?

And they say, yes. And you say, well, let's do that. And you leave there and you say, let's go get a lunch and celebrate because, you know, we did better. But did those moves do what your funds need to do for you? Here's where the education comes in. First, understand what your money needs to do that's in your best interest. And I'll give you an example because of different tax implications and different type of funds, let's look at your pre-tax accounts first, your IRA 401K, 403B.

But we know we need to move those to safety, much more in safety. But then what do we have to earn with those that we need it to do? Well, I can tell you, when you start taking your required distributions out, you'll be forced to. So that money has a forced drawdown. Starts about 4%. So I have $100 in my IRA, and the government forces me to take out $4%. I'm going to pay my income tax on that. And what am I left with?

I'm left with $96. But it started with 4%. The next year goes up a little more than 4. So what happens is the following year, I have $96 and I take a higher percent of a much smaller number. You know what's going to happen? My RMD, which is income. My RMD will be less the next year. But then my money drops more than 4% the following year.

And I'm setting up my money to where I'm always going to have less income and my money is going to drop. Now, when people understand this, it really opens their eyes. What if I have my money in equities? And I have, I keep it where it is, where it's always been. I have $100 and I take out $4 that the government requires. I'm left with $96. There's one downturn of 10%. So the funds drop 10%.

So really I've got $86 going into the, next year. Well, I'm going to take a higher percent of a lot smaller number. I'm going to get considerably less income, and that money's going to drop again. However, I've got growth within it, but my growth is starting at $86. While I draw down the next $4, I go to $82. I have this, it's like being underwater and you're trying to come up and somebody keeps pushing you're down and underwater. I am setting up my money that every year I'm going to have less income and my money is going to keep decreasing.

But what if I set that money up safely? Safely, it will earn 6%, say. I'll say 5. It's going to earn 5% completely safe, no risk of loss, no diluting fees. I end up getting 5%. I'm not doing anything in my funds. They're earning 5%. I take out my $4 from my $100 and I go down to $96.

But I've earned $5, so I start the next year with $101. I'm going to take a higher percent of a bigger number. That means I'm going to have more income, so I keep up with inflation. And my funds are going to go up because I'll go down $4 from $101. only down to 97. But then I'm going to put $5 back the following year. I have $102. So if you see where I'm going here,

you want to beat your drawdown. And if you set up your money so that the net, you know, I have an advisor that says you get one, you know, wealthy, so you can't take 1.6% fees. well if I want 6% from them and I pay 1.6% fees I get 4.4%. That's unacceptable. So we encourage our clients, number one, know what you need, your money needs to do for you, and then set a number. It's going to be good for at least a year because this is going to give you a power you never had before. The first power it's going to give you.

It empowers you. It's going to give you a power to say no. Where I wouldn't have said no to my advisor before, I'm going to say no because I'm going in with the criteria and say, what do you have this 5% net completely safe? And you're going to hear two words. Yeah, but I don't have that. Yeah, but I've got this and we can do that and look at this in three months. No, the answer is I can say no.

I can articulate why I'm saying no. know that I'm doing what my family needs those funds to be set up to do. I have a power of research because where do I research now? I might go to Google a little bit, but for the most part, I ask my advisor what's better than you think. I might go to another advisor and say, all right, I have these funds. I don't know if my advisor's doing the right thing. What would you do that might be different? I go to different banks and talk to them.

I have a relative that I trust their investment. skills. So I talk to people. But now my research is the entire world because what I do very simply is I do research on Google, Yahoo, Gemini, chat GPT. I basically clawed. I basically type in five minutes twice a month. What gives me 6% net completely safe? return. I'm going to find things that I would not have ever seen. And nobody would have shown them to me, but they're the things that my family needs. Because now I'm focused on what's best for me and my family, and I now understand what that is. I'll make up something. I mean, would I care that there's a 6.2 CD offered with the bank of which you talk

Kansas. I'm in Connecticut. No, I don't care because I'll confirm it's we all, send it out electronically, and I know that that part of my portfolio is doing what my money needs to do. My money that isn't pre-tax, I'm not drawing down or forced to draw down on it, but I'm going to consider the fact that two and a half to three percent inflation is a drawdown because my money is worth less. So now, I'm going to set it. number, it's going to be good for a year, and I might say four and a half percent. So I want the vast majority of those funds to earn four and a half percent. Now I know that some of the money that I have, it's in a high-heeled savings account. I've been very happy with it's earning

just high at four percent. I have to do better than that. It's in my family's best interest to do that. So there's an incredible power that you take on once you understand. and the power you have, and people in retirement especially need to be doing this because they can't recover from mistakes that they could during their income years. They have to realize that their situation is different. Yes. Well, Jack, let's kind of wrap things up and put a bow on it and talk about how do these three strategies work together.

So rebalancing, realizing why taxes may be higher in retirement, and then, and determining what your assets actually do for you. How do these work together and what should we understand about this synergy? But they're like any strategy. If I did a strategy for large corporation, you have to consider the marketing implications, the supply chain implications, the financial implications. These are all pieces of a puzzle.

what bunches them together is that these are three things that will have a large impact that need to be addressed in retirement transition and in retirement, and we aren't recognizing the need for them. So the first thing is, knowledge is power. Understand that these are three things that we need to address. That's where they, I think they're connected the most, is just that the three are going to affect you in different ways and not contradictory either, but not conflicting.

One doesn't negatively affect the other. These are three things that you do. Each one, you need to understand first why you're doing it and you need to do it. And you'll find the right ways to do it. You'll just pick criteria that make sure you do the right thing after it. But you're going to be amazed at the impact. looking at these three things that are right now probably surprising you because nobody has ever presented them to you before as anything you need to look at because people do not have any

commercial benefit from presenting these two. That's huge. Well, I tell you, Jack, if someone was thinking, you know, those strategies make sense to me, walk me through it, show me how I need to analyze that. What's the best way that they can learn more and reach out? and connect with you. We have a lot of information on a website, including our contact information, and the website is fourth quarter advisors.com, F-O-U-R-T-H-U-A-R-T-E-R-A-D-V-I-S-O-R-A-D-V-I-S-O-R-A-D-V-R-A-V-R-A-R-A-V-R-A-R-E-V-A-R-E-R-A-R-E-R-A-V-R-A-V-R-A-V-R-E-A-V-R-A-R-E-A-V-E-A-8, and I'll even provide a cell phone number. I'll take a phone call and help anyone I can.

203-507-38-26. Jack, once again, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you again. My pleasure. 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. influential entrepreneurs radio.com.