Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Michelle Moore Founder and Retirement Specialist with Moore Family Wealth-Discussing Building Your Retirement Paycheck

Starting point is 00:00:00 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, Michelle Moore, who's the founder and retirement specialist with Moore Family Wealth, and we'll be talking about building your retirement business. paycheck, creating income you can count on. Michelle, welcome back to the program. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me. You are welcome. I always love talking about that retirement paycheck. And it's like, hold on, I retired. I don't get a paycheck, but you got to live and got to pay the bills still. So I love how you phrase the retirement paycheck and creating that income you count on. So when you're

Starting point is 00:00:55 working with your clients, how do you help them move from, I hope I've saved enough in retirement to I'm confident that I've saved enough for retirement? Yeah, I think that's such an awesome question and one that I hear many times every day. And we do have a paycheck. We're just not working nine to five for our paycheck, but yeah, we absolutely will continue to have bills, minimally taxes, minimally groceries, right? There are things that we'll need and want to do in retirement. And So some ways that we structure that retirement income is through anything that we've spent our previous 50 or 60 years putting together. So some folks, it may be Social Security. Some folks it may be in the stock market or an IRA or a mutual fund.

Starting point is 00:01:41 But what I like to do is look at all those different pots of money and determine where is there pre-tax accounts, where is there tax deferred accounts, where are those tax-advantaged accounts, And how do we position those to give you regular monthly income to not only meet your monthly needs, but to exceed that so you can continue to do all the things that you hope to do during retirement? And that, what you just said there makes me realize you need to know that number to shoot toward. In other words, how do you meet or exceed what you need? Well, I need to sit down and go, this is what I need for retirement. and I would venture to say that you become almost like a life coach of sorts to say, hey, what does retirement look like to you and feel like to you? And how often are you going to travel?

Starting point is 00:02:33 Do you want to start a side business or a nonprofit or visit the grandkids? So what do you do to help your clients realize kind of a really dialed in number of what they actually will need to be planning for? So it does start with that one-to-one and that heartfelt discussion, whether you have a lot of money or a little bit of money. So I was working with a woman just last week who was an amazing saver, had a great job, made some really smart investments, was about a year or two away from retirement and had lots of money in the stock market, had some money in an IRA, and was just terrified. She had about almost $3 million in those accounts. And she was terrified that she still didn't have enough and didn't think she'd be able to retire.

Starting point is 00:03:22 And so she was really looking for some advice on, do I have enough or not? Because she had seen her parents really struggle, ended up in assisted living, not have a real solid plan in place. And so I was able to look at those pots of money and talk about how the stock market goes up and down, which caused that uncertainty, that anxiety, that stress,

Starting point is 00:03:44 and helped her move some of her money into an account that has a fixed, guaranteed income. So she knew that money would be predictable for the rest of her life. And she would never lose a penny. And so when I sat with her and she was, I think she was an accountant. And so she was very smart with money. And she looked at me like, what are you even talking about? I have never heard of this option.

Starting point is 00:04:12 How can this be? And so we dug deeper into fixed indexed annuities and how they do exactly that. They provide guaranteed income for life without touching that principle and really giving you that security. And so in her case, we looked at those numbers. We figured out what her current monthly amount was, how to more than match that, and how much money she would still have left over. and she's now looking at starting a dog park. She's passionate about animals.

Starting point is 00:04:48 And she wants to start this dog park for pets in her home community and is talking about working with a city to have something made for her with a flower garden that's for her mother, right, based on her mother's name as well. So this really beautiful story of a woman who was so anxious and stressed and worried have a conversation, look at those numbers, and now is so excited not only that her children and grandchildren will be taken care of, but that she has enough to give back to her community and honor her mother.

Starting point is 00:05:23 I love it. And probably if she was thinking of doing that during her working years, she would be kind of heads down, nose to the grindstone getting things done, but now this has kind of given her a little bit of a new perspective. So I think that is really neat. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:37 So I think it's really important to think of. about things like when a couple of the words that you mentioned jumped out of me guaranteed income. You know, I mean, not many things in life are guaranteed. That's true. And can never lose money. And not many things in life are guaranteed to not lose money. But having financial tools out there that you don't need to worry about those swings from market volatility and watching the news or getting your portfolio statement going, oh, look, your retirement savings just took this huge drop. that becomes a really huge way to increase that peace of mind, right?

Starting point is 00:06:15 I mean, this is something that, and I think kind of getting back to our previous conversation we had about retirement mindsets, most people think I have this much money. I put it in the market and we hope we're the best because I trust my person. But in reality, the market might be a little bit too volatile during retirement years for some And putting it into products like what you're mentioning, boy, talk about like lowering your blood pressure literally, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I see it every day. And one of the phrases that I use is zero is the hero. And so with the products that I'm looking at and lots of other folks do as well that fixed indexed annuity and annuities in the past have had a bad rap. And that's in part of how they were structured looking at variable terms. where they would still go up and down, or maybe they would have a really fixed interest rate with some fees that were very low. And we don't use those with my company. Those are not products that we use.

Starting point is 00:07:18 We don't look at products that have fees. And so that zero is a hero refers to when the stock market goes down, your product doesn't go down. So there'll be a guaranteed floor where the worst you can do is zero, even if the market tanks. The follow-up question is always. but how does that work? What do you mean? And so I use the analogy of those who've purchased a house. You go to buy a house, you fall in love with it, you give someone your earnest money and say, this is the house for me.

Starting point is 00:07:49 But then you have the inspection and you find out that the foundation is bad and the plumbing is bad and the wiring is bad. And you say, just kidding, please, I want my earnest money back and you carry on, right? And so there's the ability to do that exact same thing in the stock market with options. And so companies purchase options. And as the stock market goes up and down at the end of that term, if it did well, they say, yes, this was fantastic. Let it be. But if it didn't perform, they said, please money back, just like that escrow account. And that zero floor is then passed on to you, the consumer. So there's no loss. And the beautiful thing with all of that, I'm assuming,

Starting point is 00:08:34 is you don't need to even know how to spell the word options because it's all being done behind the scenes. Thank goodness. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Just don't confuse me with the facts. Just tell me I can never lose money and it's guaranteed.

Starting point is 00:08:48 Thank you. Absolutely. And what folks also don't realize is let's say you've got four quarters, right? We can visualize four quarters. If the market loses 50%, which has happened a few times, right, when the market crashed during COVID, when the market crashed, was it in the 90s? with the mortgage, it happens, right? So instead of having four quarters, it goes down, you lose two quarters, right?

Starting point is 00:09:11 So you've only got two of your four quarters. Now, if you listen to some financial people and say, it's fantastic, the market has now recovered that 50%. You might initially think, I lost 50, I gained 50, I'm back to zero. But if you think about it, 50% of that two quarters is only adding a third quarter. you're only back to 75 cents. So the market actually needs to double in order to get back to zero. So not having any of those losses could you so much further ahead in the investment game.

Starting point is 00:09:48 You know, I've heard that example before and I think I've even seen like an Excel file with some charts and things saying exact. Because people think, oh, I lost this. I just need to gain it right. No, it's like if you lost that, you need to gain more to get back to ground zero. and then all of a sudden now you're behind the eight ball. And it makes me think that if someone really wanted to get back to ground zero and get back on track, they may be tempted to take a little bit more risk than would be, you know, advisable. And now you are at risk of losing it even worse.

Starting point is 00:10:17 So having that, okay, so I'm an analogy guy. It reminds me of the tortoise and the hair. You know, I don't care if the rabbit sprints forward. He gets tired, distracted, but the tortoise, steady plotting wins. Exactly. And that's the beauty of that fixed indexed annuity product that so many of my families absolutely love. So what are the key components of this successful retirement plan like? How do you interweave things like the annuity and social security and tax strategy, things like that?

Starting point is 00:10:50 Because obviously that question or that point is a weekend long seminar concept. But from a 30,000 foot view, how should we be viewing those components? Yeah, so I think you can read and you can educate, but really speaking with people who do it every day is going to be your best bet. Right. And so your financial planner, your tax advisor, and someone who specializes in retirement, like myself, who can look at those other products as well because not all products are well known. So I think we talked about the 401K earlier. And so, again, when you're just looking at that product, you're not aware of maybe some of the tax disadvantages that after retirement, your taxes may actually go up. And so you may not be prepared for that, right?

Starting point is 00:11:42 And people are, what? My taxes go up? Well, yeah, they very well could. And especially when you hit age 73 and you're at what's called required minimum distributions where you're required to start taking. making money out of your accounts. Very well, if you're not planning and have it on your radar, push you into that next tax bracket and cause some serious problems. You know, it's those things that you don't know about that can really punch those holes in

Starting point is 00:12:15 the retirement bucket, so to speak. And if you have someone watching out for you from the holistic 360-degree view or 30,000-foot view, now it's like, hold on, hold on. that makes sense in this aspect, but when you get to this age and the this triggers, then we need to take into consideration taxes. And it's like, oh, wow. And so a lot of times I think people are like, you know, if you, if you, I think that's a, that's a, you know, like an old wife's tail like, oh, in retirement, you'll be in a lower tax

Starting point is 00:12:43 bracket. Really? We don't know that. You know, we literally don't know it because things change all the time. But probably if we were to stop 100 people on the street and say, do you think taxes are going to go up in the future? Everyone would say yes because we see what the deficit is. We see government spending.

Starting point is 00:12:59 We know that the only way they can tame all of that mess is raise taxes and that's on the backs of us. So if we have that uncertainty where we don't know what tax is going to do, boy, we better put a plan into place to at least be ready for that or and or have some of our money in some tax-favored kind of strategy so that it doesn't hit us as hard, right? Absolutely. And a beautiful one, a couple that I like, depending on your age and your health and lots of other factors. Certainly, Roth has been used for lots of folks, right, that Roth IRA, which has some nice tax benefits. But another product that I never knew about until after my husband passed and I started learning more and got into the financial field of helping folks is something called an IUL, an indexed universal life policy. And so with this policy, it's also protected from some taxes because it's a life insurance product, but it has a cash value benefit.

Starting point is 00:14:01 So you're still able to take some money out without that tax burden because you pay taxes going in. You don't pay when it comes out. Huge. And you've mentioned several things throughout our conversation like, you know, the IUL and annuities. And I think that people need to realize that, oh, that sounds really good, that particular one. I'm going to take all my money and put it in that one thing. No. Right.

Starting point is 00:14:30 And, oh, she said this and this and this. So that works for everybody. No. So these are just things that to your point, you didn't realize until you had to educate yourself. You discovered them. You've polished and fine-tune them for people. But it's a whole different combination. It's kind of like having a recipe and, you know, combining the ingredients to make a whole

Starting point is 00:14:52 different outcome for each and every person. So I think people listening to this should go, yeah, that makes some sense. Please guide me. Let me know what some of my options are. So let's think about this. We hear retirement planning and saving. You know, like I need X number of dollars so that when I get X-Aid, then I'm going to have some money to, you know, live in retirement. So what's the difference between saving for retirement and planning for income in retirement? Yeah, so saving is excellent when we're when we're younger and that's what we do. But if we don't have that plan in place, maybe we are, I know you like analogies, Mike, so I'm going to give you another one. We talk about farmers, right, or those of us who've had gardens.

Starting point is 00:15:39 Would we rather pay money on this seed, the tiny seeds, or the harvest after it grows, which are we going to pay more tax on? And of course, we know that harvest. And so even as we're saving for retirement in our younger years, if all of our money is going in that pre-tax bucket, when we take it out in retirement, we're going to get really hammered. We're going to really struggle with taxes because we didn't invest it right in the beginning. And so that's one of the pitfalls that I see with a lot of folks is not sure how to shut. some of that money between those buckets so that they're planning for that tax and those tax-free withdraws as they have more birthdays. Yeah, huge, huge.

Starting point is 00:16:29 And it all just gets down to planning. And when should we start planning as early as humanly possible, right? So what advice would you give some women who still have 401K's pensions and don't really know how to turn all of that into some steady, reliable, guaranteed income? Yeah, I think that you want to. want to find someone you know and like and trust because all of these tools can be fantastic if they're set up correctly. But not everyone knows how to set them up correctly, right? And so doing your due diligence and who is out there and who is reputable and really making sure that

Starting point is 00:17:05 they have your best interest at heart. One of the things that I've seen with so many of my families is that they'll go to a big name advisor. And they'll They won't recognize how much even a one or two or three percent fee really tax their retirement funds. And so when I show them graphs of, yes, they were helpful and did amazing work, but let's look at this one or two or three percent. And over the course of your 30 years of investing, instead of having $1.2 million, now you're at $600,000 because of maybe a 3 percent fee that you're. you were giving someone. It's like my telephone bill, right? It's like, we're going to give you this cheap cell phone bill, but then we had this fee and

Starting point is 00:17:54 this fee and by the time you get it, it's literally doubled. And you go, what the, what the heck was that, right? You know, it's interesting that, you know, when you get your statement and it says, oh, hey, last quarter, your rate of return was X, whatever the percent was. And it's like, oh, that's pretty good. But then when you start looking at fee, fee, fee, fee, fee, then it's like effectively that rate is not what it showed. It's down at the lower amount because money was taken.

Starting point is 00:18:17 out. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so that's another thing that so many folks don't, don't realize. And again, particularly with some of the big-named financial companies, that's how they generate their money, right? That's how they do advertising and make sure that everyone's well paid. And just, again, not that they don't do great work, but to be mindful, that is their strategy and how it may impact your bottom-off. Anyone could do that. but be mindful of that with whoever you talk to, but someone like yourself who is an independent, you've got some flexibility with the types of products. So like the big name people you see on TV or radio, they may be limited to certain products

Starting point is 00:19:01 because they only offer this and that in a small handful. So there's some good benefits that come with working with an individual, independent. And then you are sitting there pointing out and going, look at the fees, none. Look at the fees that I'm charging you, zero. So being able to go in eyes wide open is got to be a huge opportunity in checking things out. Absolutely. And I, as you alluded to, I probably have contracts with 30 different companies. And I have no loyalty to any one company, which is going to be best for my client.

Starting point is 00:19:36 And then you said something into that like analogies, right? And so another analogy is I go into that big named retirement planning store. And I use like, I'm starving. I'm so hungry. I know I need something to eat. So I go into McDonald's and I say, give me your best meal. And they give me my quarter pounder, right? It's the very best that they can do at McDonald's, which is true.

Starting point is 00:19:57 Yeah. But is McDonald's the best restaurant in town? Right. Maybe not, right. So what else is there? And it's not advertised, right? Golden Arch is there everywhere. Yep.

Starting point is 00:20:08 But they're not going to tell you, oh, this is our best, but really down the road, you could go down here and get something more nutritious or cost effective. They're just saying, you know, they're processing orders. You walked in, you placed an order, they said here. Exactly. Exactly. So again, being mindful of the pros, but also the limitations and why sometimes that independent advisor might be a better option.

Starting point is 00:20:33 To at least present a wide variety of options that might fit based on what you're looking for so that you can talk it through. And not feeling pushed and, you know, crammed into this one. decision. So that's a really big piece. So Michelle, this has been so helpful talking through some of these concepts. If someone is interested in getting some of that unbiased advice, what's the best way they can reach out and connect with you? I'd love to speak with anyone who's interested in learning more. I would love to help. And probably the best way to do that is to book an appointment with me through my website. And that is my last name, Moore, M-O-O-R-E. So it's more familywealth.com. And

Starting point is 00:21:14 And as Mike was saying, my consultation is always free. So there's no fee for anything that I do for you. Excellent. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for coming back on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Thank you, Mike. Talk soon. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders.

Starting point is 00:21:34 To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www. com.

Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Michelle Moore Founder and Retirement Specialist with Moore Family Wealth-Discussing Building Your Retirement Paycheck

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