Business Innovators Radio - Interview With Ron Cook, Jr. Owner of RC Wealth Advisors Discussing a Simple Retirement Strategy

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

Ron Cook Jr is an independent fiduciary Investment Advisor Representative that helps families with the fear of possibly running out of money in retirement, lowering or eliminating retirement financial risks, and protecting their retirement funds from unexpected life events. He prides himself in making complex situations simple and easy to put into place with comprehensive retirement planning.Ron loves his God, country, and family. He is a big New England Sports fan, he has two French bulldogs and has an annual pass to Disney World where he and his wife got married.Learn More: https://www.rcwealthadvisors.com/ & https://www.retirementmoneyschool.com/Investment Advisory Services offered through Retirement Wealth Advisors, Inc. (RWA) an SECRegistered Investment Advisor. RC Wealth Advisors and RWA are not affiliated. Investing involves risk including the potential loss of principal. No investment strategy can guarantee a profit or protect against loss in periods of declining values. Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice and are not intended as investment advice or to predict future performance. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult your financial professional before making any investment decision.This information is designed to provide general information on the subjects covered, it is not, however, intended to provide specific legal or tax advice and cannot be used to avoid tax penalties or to promote, market, or recommend any tax plan or arrangement. Please note that RC Wealth Advisors and its affiliates do not give legal or tax advice. You are encouraged to consult your tax advisor or attorney.Annuity guarantees rely on the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurer. Any references to protection benefits or lifetime income generally refer to fixed insurance products. They do not refer, in any way to securities or investment advisory products or services. Fixed Insurance and Annuity product guarantees are subject to the claims‐paying ability of the issuing company and are not offered by Retirement Wealth Advisors, Inc.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-ron-cook-jr-owner-of-rc-wealth-advisors-discussing-a-simple-retirement-strategy

Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with as Ron Cook Jr., who's the owner of RC wealth advisors, and we'll be discussing a simple retirement strategy. Ron, welcome to the program. Hey, Mike, how's it going? Doing awesome. And I love, love, love the word simple.

You know what? I think that people get so busy and they don't want to hear some complicated, you know, the top 49 ways to enhance your retirement. They don't have time for that. So I'm excited to hear about your simple retirement strategy. But before we dive into that, give us a little bit of your background and story. And how did you get into financial services? Yeah.

So how I actually got into it was my dad actually has his own independent insurance practice. So I actually dove in. I actually expanded the family business. So this has been like a multi-generational kind of thing that we've done. So we're truly just work with retirees and people preparing for retirement. But even myself, though, I'm on my own financial freedom journey right now. The difference is the people that I'm seeing, you know,

once they're 60 and beyond, have different tools and different options than somebody that my age has. So they have tools like Social Security, pensions, and their retirement accounts that they have to go and use. So, well, you know, like when people are going into retirement, there's three common things that we do see is they have the concerns of, like running out of money or running low on. on money, market risk while securing income, and also overall taxes.

And so the way that we solve that here at Cook Tax and Retirement and R.C. Wealth Advisors and Retirement Money School is we teach them this simple, secure, and smart retirement strategies that are these long-term strategies to help those that are really heading into retirement. We really work. You know, I love how you said that you're going through it right now. Because I think a lot of times people are like, oh, well, if you don't have 112 years industry experience, then I'm not going to listen to you. But I really like when it's like, look, I'm right here with you. I've learned some mistakes. I've learned how to get around some things.

And I've learned how to pave the way for you to succeed. So I'm doing it right along with you. In fact, I can tell you some of the last decisions I made. And I think that really becomes authentic and transparent to people. Exactly. Exactly. So when you are working with a new client, what are some of the things that you are seeing with these clients that are the most common challenges that they have when they're preparing for retirement? Yeah.

So some of the most common challenges that we see is when we're sitting there like either on a Zoom call or somebody comes into the office for the first time is just getting organized. They have accounts all over the place. So it's funny, we'll be on a Zoom call. And we'll see people, they'll run it around their house, rummaging through filing cabinet. It's trying to look at all these different accounts that they have asking each other, hey, honey, you know, do we have this other account? Where is this other account? You know, I know there's another, you know, 50 grand over here or whatever.

And they have all this money spread out. So the number one step that we help people do is just get organized. And then once we have all those documents, how do we consolidate accounts and make it even simpler for them to know the next steps to then secure their retirement? Yeah. You know, and I think that what you just said there makes a whole lot of sense. And it made me think of something. You've probably seen this so many times before.

You know, when you feel disorganized like that, you just feel like you're out of whack. But when you get someone probably with your systems and strategies where it's like, okay, now let me show you where all of your money is and here is this and you've got this in this account. And don't they just have this like huge feeling of relief? Like, oh my word, that's just I know exactly where my money is. I know the link to the login. And I know the, and it's just this huge, it's, it's an intangible because it's just a feeling, right? But have you ever seen that come up?

Oh, oh, yeah. So like that's probably the most common thing. Like, but on top of that is just that whole relief of now just knowing where their money is, seeing it all in one place. And then now trying to consolidate those accounts. And instead of having, you know, multiple accounts across the board and multiple different banks, actually having one place or multiple, like maybe two or three places where they have it to keep it really simple and in each of those buckets, which we'll talk about later conversations to actually give purpose behind those buckets. Yeah. Have you ever had someone that is like, oh, I'm doing so

good financially. And here's where my money is. And then when you kind of get it all reorganized and everything, they're like, oh, I didn't have quite as much as I thought or the opposite. Like, oh, my. Yeah. No, both cases, Mike. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I forgot I had that account. And so I'm, I'm, you know, I've got a little bit more to work with. So I'm excited to learn about it. Yeah, they'll see there because like some of the retirement tools that we use, they'll actually see their net worth. And they go, I didn't even know it was worth that much. You know, they're like, where's, where's, where's all that money, you know?

Yeah. So it's funny when they first see it on one sheet there. So let's move into once you kind of get that clarified and consolidated, what are some of the ways that they can simplify their retirement with just like simplicity? One strategy, one thing. What are you coming alongside working with them on? to help simplify their strategy. Yeah.

So what happens is what we look at is how the money is actually tax. So each of the buckets that they have, like say each one of the accounts is taxed differently. It's kind of like oil and water. You can't mix them. So what we like to do is try to put, you know, all the oil together, all the water together to keep it, you know, consolidated that way. So a lot of people, if they have these, you know, traditional 401 plans, like your 401Ks, your, your 403Bs. and just traditional IRAs can all be consolidated into a traditional IRA or maybe two IRAs. So, but it has to be on the individual level.

Like husband and wife cannot merge those two together. You just make each other beneficiaries of each other's accounts. And the key word there is T, the taxed, because you don't want to make a move that is going to trigger or make a negative tax situation. So you're going to make those recommendations in that organizing step to make sure that yes, it's organized and less accounts and less scattered, but we don't want to trigger any tax consequence. So I think that's a great point you bring up. Yeah. And then what happens to is then they usually have money outside of their retirement accounts. So this is like your non-retirement money that's usually in the bank or maybe they have like a stock account, like a brokerage account.

And what they want to do is try to figure out how much do they need to keep in their bank for say like an emergency fund. And then the rest they should maybe consider looking at like investment accounts where they can have tax advantages because there's rules and tax advantages that you can look at, which we'll talk about later, with those kinds of accounts that maybe the bank can't provide to lower your overall tax bill throughout retirement. So I know that you hear certain things that are cliche statements like you should have six months of living expenses on hand in a liquid cash account for emergencies. What is what is your advice when you're when you're looking at some of those non-qualified

accounts that you're talking about should your clients have six months, 12 months, one month? What do you advise that way? I actually usually look at a benchmark of a year's worth of expenses. So the reason is, I mean, we just went through COVID, you know, a few years ago. And how long did that last? If somebody had a bank account that they had, I know it's not really earning you much money, but it's nice to know that you have a piece of mind where you can go grab your money quick. I mean, a lot of the times you have all these financial models and tools out there.

that tell you that, you know, to pay off your house or whether to not pay off your house or, you know, have a certain amount of money in the bank or a certain rate of return when really we have a lot of psychological triggers us as human beings that just make us feel comfortable. Sometimes it's not always about a financial model. So that's why I sometimes, you know, financially, sometimes it doesn't make sense to pay off your house. But if it's a piece of mind for you to pay off your house, that makes sense. So now going back to the bank accounts, that's how I look at it.

what is a certain number in a bank account that gives you, you know, sleep at night. And that's how much you should really have in there. But I just use it, I call it a soft benchmark because it's not like a hard number. But I like to usually just see a year's worth of expenses because if we have that lined up, what happens is now we don't have to run up credit cards. We can go grab that money at any time. And it's just a piece of mind that you can go grab a quick chunk of money fast for whatever it is that you need. And it can always be replaced.

You bring up a big point about mindset because paying off a mortgage is a big question that people have. And I literally this weekend was reading a book and the author was talking about money to pay off a mortgage. And they said, well, which would make you feel better having no mortgage or having enough cash in an investment account that you can access easily? That's not locked up and tied up. That equals the amount of money to mortgage. And the point that they were making is, okay, either one is you're still. debt, not literally debt-free, but you have enough money to add the stroke of a check, you could pay off that mortgage because you've got the cash right there.

And so the downfall that people make is, I'm going to pay off my mortgage. I'm going to make triple payments every month. And okay, that's great. But nine months in, 12 months in, 18 months in, what if you need that money? You can't get it back because it's tied up in your mortgage. So that's a good point. So talk a little bit about, you mentioned some of the qualified plans like IRAs and things. Talk a little bit about all the various Roth IRA plans.

that are out there and without getting detail, but I know that's an option. Yeah, so same thing. A lot of these Roth 401 plans, like I said, like the 401Ks, 403Bs, they're now offering Roths before these were things that did not exist. Now they're now becoming more prevalent. And also Roth IRAs can all be consolidated into one Roth IRA. So by doing that, too, it makes things a lot simpler. Now, the Roth IRAs, you've got to look at, you know, whether you're working or not.

Right now I'm just talking very general terms. If you're working, sometimes these other four one plans have great advantages that these other traditional retirement accounts don't. So you've got to really look at what is the best benefits for you. And what I mean by that is how much money, if you're still working, you can put a lot more money into those. And that's probably a lot bigger advantage. But if you're going into retirement and actually retired, now you want to really start to consolidate it. So timing is really important when I'm talking about this consolidation. Yeah, and you know, from a tax standpoint, and, you know, if you, if you want to make this point later in later points, let me know, but I think that this is something where people go, okay, hold on. You know, in retirement, you know, years down the road, we're going to be in a better tax situation or lower tax bracket. Well, maybe not. But I've heard that there are some strategies that could be beneficial to people to convert some of their traditional IRA money into a Roth IRA and just take it on the chin now and,

pay the taxes now because taxes are now known and it might be lower than what they're going to be in 10 or 15 years. So like you've said a minute ago, no one strategy or idea is perfect for everyone. Everyone has to make sure that it benefits them. But is that conversion strategy something to consider? Oh, it is absolutely something to consider. But we're going to talk about that in the future. But my thing is with this simple strategy right now, it's all about just trying to make the accounts easier and simpler to look at. And then now what happens is tax planning. That's what we're talking about now,

what you're referencing is tax planning, which is going to happen as one of the following steps after this. Got it. Well, I want to keep focused. That's something, yeah, that's something that you really go,

got to pay attention to because some people will say, hey, you know, I have these traditional retirement accounts that have never been taxed, and then they're going to be taxable to me. Why don't I just go create them and make them tax free? You're going to want to hold the brakes on that. because we're going to talk about that and how to do that properly.

So then you don't bite the bullet and actually screw yourself. You know, you don't want to do that. It's going to be bad thing. Because you know what? Google is our friend and Google can be our worst enemy. And you can see all kinds of ideas and articles and like, oh, well, I did this. And it worked for me. And someone could go, cool, I'm going to do it and trigger something really catastrophic financially.

So definitely make sure that you are getting great guidance from someone here like Ron, because, you know, look at your situation. Everybody's situation is different. So we're talking here about the simple strategies of getting organized. Do you have any examples? Do you have a client story that you can give about this and someone that you've given advice to that it's succeeded? Yeah. So just to keep the names confidential, we're going to just call them.

I'm going to call them Bob and Linda. And one time they were on a Zoom call with us. And they were like I was saying before, they were just running around. They had all their accounts all over the place. They were extremely flustered and slightly embarrassed. And to me, you know, I'm just like the doctor. when it comes to money, I've seen everything. So it's not embarrassing to me.

You know, it's everybody goes through this. So you've worked your whole life and you've stashed this money away. And nobody's ever told you what to do. And now it's time to go use it. And sometimes, you know, life happened. You didn't do anything about it. And it just kind of sat there. So we've seen it all when it comes to this.

So really what we did is we showed them after we laid out everything that they had 20 different accounts at 10 different beings. Good night. Yeah. So one of my things is a lot of other financial professionals will just say, hey, you know, you're good where you're at. You know, let's look at these buckets. But my thing is, why not make this easier? Like, that's just super overwhelming. It's even can be overwhelming for a lot of financial professionals. So what I was able to show them is how we took basically and help them take those 20 accounts and consolidate them down to six. Okay. So what they had is their individual, two individual retirement accounts, two Roth accounts. and then their two bank accounts. That's what they had. And that's what they wanted. And then what happened, too, is we showed them how to now take those six accounts.

And really, they only needed three institutions. So now when statements came in, they knew where all their money was and what it was doing. And then we gave it purpose. And that's what we're going to talk about later, is the purpose for each one of those three institutions and what they're actually going to do for you. You know, there probably was even specific quantifying.

benefits of doing that other than just feeling more organized. But as an example, and you don't need to get into detail, but it made me think that, boy, if you've got 20 accounts at 10 different banks, you could have been hitting certain tiers like, oh, well, if you have this much money with this institution, you're getting this rate of return. And they might have been missing out on tiers, just having it spread so much. So I would suspect that having it organized like that makes you feel better, but also having less accounts, you could maximize the return potentially as well. Oh, it does. Yeah. Oh, it creates a lot of efficiencies. And then especially if lowering the tax bills too sometimes by putting them in the right

buckets using the right kind of vehicles, that's the thing is, is people, especially in their case, they thought they were diversified. Just because you have multiple different banks doesn't mean you're diversified. You can have more, you can have one bank and have diversification inside that account at that bank. So, or that investment company. So, diversification happens inside the account, not by having all these institutions. That's great. Well, Ron, this has been so eye-opening, and I think it's really excellent to bang the drum for simplicity. So if someone is listening to this thinking, hey, can you take a peek at my situation?

What does it look like for me? What would some of these simple recommendations be? What's the best way they can learn more and also reach out and connect with you? Yeah, so they can actually go to my websites to see more of what we have to offer. So we have RC wealth advisors.com. And we also have Retirement MoneySchool.com where we offer a lot of free education and also education that we have courses that people can actually jump into to actually dive even deeper into what we talked about today with the simple strategies, how to maybe even try to do some of this stuff on your own.

But I would actually consider working with a professional so you don't make any mistakes that could actually cost you a lot of money. It's always easier and faster to work with a professional than it is to do it all. on your own. I love it. Ron, thank you so much for coming on today. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. See you here, Mike. Great chat with you. Investment advisory services offered through Retirement Wealth Advisors, Inc.

RWA, an SEC registered investment advisor. RC. Wealth Advisors and RWA are not affiliated. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principle. No investment strategy can guarantee a profit or

protect against loss in periods of declining values. Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice and are not intended as investment advice or to predict future performance. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult your financial professional before making any investment decision. This information is designed to provide general information on the subjects covered. It is not, however, intended to provide specific legal or tax advice and cannot be used to avoid tax penalties or to promote, market, or recommend any tax plan or arrangement. Please note that R.C. wealth advisors and its affiliates do not give legal or tax advice.

You are encouraged to consult your tax advisor or attorney. Annuity guarantees rely on the financial strength and claims paying ability of the issuing insurer. Any references to protection benefits or lifetime income generally refer to fixed insurance products. they do not refer in any way to securities or investment advisory products or services. Fixed insurance and annuity product guarantees are subject to the claims-paying ability of the issuing company and are not offered by Retirement Wealth Advisors, LLC.