Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Interview with Laurene Breitkreutz, Founder of Your Wealth Refined Discussing Risks In Retirement

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Laurene didn’t take the traditional path into financial planning. She took the real one.She started working at 16 to help her family make ends meet after her stepfather had an industrial accident. He went from bringing home $600 a week to $35. So she got a job, stayed in school, and figured out how to navigate a world that doesn’t wait for people to be ready.She spent 31 years with AT&T — starting as a junior in high school, working her way up, and eventually retiring at 48 when they laid me off. She had a pension. I had time. And she was not going to spend it babysitting.So Laurene went back to work. She has now had four careers. The one that shaped me most — before financial planning — was 13 years as a business consultant, walking into family-owned businesses and asking every uncomfortable question until people understood what they actually needed. She wasn’t the one with all the answers. She was the one who asked until the right answers surfaced.That’s exactly what she does now.For the past 13 years, she has been helping people build financial plans that actually hold up — through unexpected illnesses, market downturns, career changes, and the hard questions most advisors never ask. She started in mortgage protection, helping families make sure a mortgage wouldn’t become a crisis if someone got hurt or died. Now she works primarily with doctors and high-income professionals who are earning well but haven’t had time to build a real plan around what they’re earning.Laurene’s philosophy is simple: Mission before commission. She doesn’t care how much she makes on a plan. She cares whether the plan is right for them. It took me three years to even notice how little she was getting paid by certain carriers — that’s how little she was focused on the money. What she focuses on is the outcome.Laurene asks hard questions. She holds her clients accountable. And she shows up every year at their anniversary to make sure they’re still on track — because a financial plan isn’t a one-time event. It’s a relationship.Philosophy: Security Over ReturnsHere’s what makes her different: she doesn’t chase returns. She builds security. Especially for doctors, people already have a high income. What they need isn’t more risk. They need a plan that protects what they’ve built, reduces what they owe to the IRS, and makes sure their family is never left scrambling. That’s what they build together.Her primary focus is on doctors and high-income professionals between ages 30 and 50 — people who are earning well, living well, and haven’t sat down to build a real plan yet. Whether they’re worried about taxes, what happens if they can’t work, or just the creeping feeling that they’re missing something — I’m probably a good fit.Learn more: https://www.yourwealthrefined.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-laurene-breitkreutz-founder-of-your-wealth-refined-discussing-risks-in-retirement

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, Lorraine Breitrites, who's the founder of your wealth refined, and we'll be talking about risks in retirement. retirement. Lorraine, welcome back to the program. It's Mike. Good to be bad.

Hey, so I know that, you know, we've said in previous conversations, you know, this word makes you think this. And boy, risk, not many people, not many. I know some people would go, hey, bring it on. Not many people love to embrace risk. So we definitely want to make sure that we fully understand the risks in retirement and make sure we mitigate them as much as possible because you can never eliminate. You could just lessen them. But when you're working with your clients, what are some of the first steps that you take to help them understand some of the retirement risks?

So I love to do questioning. So I have loaded questions that I talk to clients about and ask them to get their thoughts on what those issues mean. So one of them could be taxes. another one could be if you live too long, what would you do? Things like that. So it's a matter of finding out what the client's experience is. And most people don't really forward think to what's going to happen whenever they're in retirement. It's just going to be, you know, a slavehood, I guess.

Yeah. I almost think that sometimes people think, yeah, those risks, yeah, yeah, they just won't happen to me. But sometimes it will, you know, or yeah, yeah, I need to plan for retirement. I'll do that later. Well, later it turns into I'm 61 and I want to retire next year. So, you know, you need to take these things and kind of have a plan in place in case they happen. But what if it doesn't happen, then you're in a better spot because you plan for it. Exactly. So what are the typical steps that you're recommended to clients to make sure their retirement that they've saved up actually lasts for their lifetime, you know, even kind of weathering through these risks.

So it's really a matter of getting all the information from the client. And that requires, again, having the client trust you implicitly because you're not being nosy. You're not trying to do anything illicit with them. You're just trying to look out for their future. So that's sort of my function. And it's to ask the hard questions about what if this, things could be a simple one could be what's in your familial history. Is there any illnesses that run in your family that we should know to prepare for? A lot of people don't think to ask those questions. They're going to be the same way in retirement that they are today, even though retirement is 25 years from now or whatever. Well, that's not necessarily the case. I'm quote

unquote retired, but this is not the retirement that I thought I was going to have. So that's just me. And that revolves around my spouse. We can't do things together. So we're very limited in what we can do. Well, God forbid that that happens to anybody else, but how can I help someone prepare for that if it happens to them without asking those questions? Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes those questions are tougher. sometimes it makes you feel bad like oh i should have been saving more over the years but let's see where you are now let's plan for the future and you mentioned some of the the risk and i know there's probably you know a dozen risks out there but some of the bigger ones are like things that the frustration comes in when it's like things i can't control like taxes and inflation i can't

control if inflation you know is flared up or taxes go up or down but i can prepare what my retirement savings will do if that happens. So what are some of the broad stroke things that you advise to do to plan for if inflation and taxes kind of make some shifts in the future? So it would be the recommendations that we make of what they can do differently with their financial planning today that doesn't restrict them too much for today because we still like to do things and acquire things. But we just don't want to make. make we want to make sure that we don't spend all of our money on those things, unless in my case, you're creating memories.

So that's my thing. I'm creating a memory. So let's go with that. But it is really to bring them back to earth and create the reality that that you want to make sure that you don't run out of money. So what are the things that we can do today to eliminate that risk? one of them would be to reduce any debt. And I like doing that or recommending to do that using other people's money instead of your own.

Eliminate any tax burden that you're going to build for yourself, such as if you have a 401K, 403B, a TSP, that we figure the best way, to convert that money to tax-free money so that it's tax-free for your use in retirement and even passing on to your loved ones if you don't manage to spend it all. My husband accuses me that we will have no problem with that because I like to spend money. Well, you have to live too because the worst thing in the world is to live on rice and beans and think, oh, I need to save money for down the road, down the road. Then when down the road comes, you have a health issue and it's like, well, I can't go do the things I wish I'd saved the money for.

So there needs to be that balance for sure. Exactly. Exactly. And so that's what I like to try to work with my clients on to help them see that picture, because it's not always the way that they've perceived it at that point. And we're not, I'm not prophesizing, but just to be prepared.

What's the Boy Scout slogan? Always be prepared. Yeah. You know, and if I think from a logical sense, if you're prepared for, you know, if you draw a circle and write in a big potential risk to your retirement and whatever is in that circle, you're like, okay, let's prepare for this. And then if you get down to that point and it doesn't happen, then great. You, you didn't need to expend the

expenses for whatever. But if you did have that come up, you're prepared. So talk a little bit about some, some more bumper guards or guard rails that you can put into place for things that could really impede your retirement. And with the concept of risk, you know, one of the risks is I saved a bunch of money, but oops, now I need to go into a nursing home or have in-home care. And then that's going to really, really chunk into my savings and impede that. So what are some of the guardrails or preventatives that you can mitigate that risk? So just using the insurance standpoint, that's one of the things that you can put that in place so that insurance carries things today riders.

So they ride along with a policy that you're already getting. And they cost very little extra in most cases. But they can help take care of that if it occurs without just concentrating on it. I think most people, by the time they're beginning to think. about retirement, that they've looked at long-term care, for instance, and they've discounted it because it has a huge cost. Well, that is true if you look at it just from that standpoint. But there's ways to take care of that that's not so cost prohibitive while you're living

and still give you that peace of mind that you would have if it occurs for you or your spouse, for instance. Yeah, yeah, that's a really, really good point. You know, I think that sometimes people make assumptions or don't plan and then they're just caught. And like you were saying about shifting money into tax-free vehicles, all of that stuff needs to be planned well in advance so that you've got time to let that strategy really, really run its course. Is there an example of a client that you've worked with that maybe you've implemented some of these things that would mitigate and lessen some of their risk that would help, you know, bring some of these things to life for us? Absolutely. And usually it has more than one solution. So one case I can think of, we started out with a

client who wanted to make sure that if he passed away, his mortgage would be paid for so his family would not have to leave the home. It doesn't necessarily have to do with long-term care, but But that was his goal. That was all he wanted. He just wanted a policy to do that. But there's something that people don't take into consideration in planning for retirement, and that is they plan to retire and they plan for their home to be paid for. But depending on the size of the home, they have a very high tax and insurance bill.

and whenever their home is paid for, that bill is still going to go on. So whether, no matter what income level you're at, it's a burden in retirement. So in this client's case, we had not only his home paid for in eight years instead of 30 years, but we also had a provision where he would never have to come out of pocket for his property taxes and his insurance on the property in retirement. So that's like really living free. That particular part took a few years longer than that, but it was using other people's money. Now, that is my favorite thing to do if we can use other people's money. And in my case, that's usually with an insurance carrier.

But, you know, they make a lot of money. So they can afford it. But the cash value that he will build in that policy could be used to take care of those living expenses for long-term care if it was necessary because he had the foresight to put that policy. in place. Not saying that it will, but he had had that happen with his parents. So I did not help them. I didn't know them, but that was one thing he wanted to avoid. So we sort of killed three birds with one stub.

Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. So what are you finding that big, like maybe if when people come in and they have some assumptions like, oh, I'm going to do it this way or that way. those are mistakes or misconceptions. What are some of the mistakes that people are making that cause retirees to run through their savings a little faster than expected? You know, more than just they spend too much.

I'm sure there's other kind of mistakes that people are kind of making that they can be aware of so that they can put a stop to it. So I would say that one of the biggest ones is not taking into consideration the tax problem that they're going to create in retirement. whenever you retire, you're going to have to take required minimum distributions. And we're not really educated in how you plan for that. So it is getting rid of those problems. It is also living too long, outliving the money that you thought you were going to need and thinking that it was going to go further. So how do you develop a plan?

to make sure that that's not going to happen to you. So those are a couple of the things that I can think of. And health is the other one. So we don't take into consideration that we're not going to be able to do all the things that we've been able to do at this point in our life. Yeah, that's a whole other conversation, isn't it, with health and premiums and Medicare and Medicaid and plan ABC and all of that. but that's a really good point that you bring up, which is there are some of these hotspots that typically people are not considering. And if one or two of those kind of pop up for you,

they could be a big, big smash to your plans. So let's kind of wrap up with this thought, Lorraine. When you bring income planning and tax strategy and long-term care planning and protection, how does that really bolster the overall strength of a retirement plan when you kind of help mitigate those retirement risks through the lens of those key areas. So I think what you're doing is you're taking into consideration all of the things that could happen and you're putting in as many, you called it earlier, bumper guards as possible

to prohibit those from keeping you from living a more comfortable, less concerned retirement, that you have a provision for it. life may deal a different blow. I mean, did anybody expect COVID-19? No, but we had it. But you've put as many bumper guards in place as you know to put in, and you can feel more confident that you're going to have a good retirement. Yeah.

Yeah, that's really powerful. Well, let's wrap up, Lorraine. What is someone hearing this going to think, hey, I might need to have you give me a second opinion on my approach. How can they learn a little bit more and then also reach out and connect with you? So I would recommend that you go to my website, Your Wealthrefined.com. And look a call with me and we can go from there, get to know each other. Wonderful.

Lorraine, thank you so much for coming back on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you again. Okay. Thank you, Mike. 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.