The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Alayna Stiffler And Brayan Santos Joined Alex Urpí & Michael Urpí On "Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Alayna Stiffler of Clean Wax Candles and Brayan Santos of C&F Bank joined Alex Urpí & Michael Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Craddock Insurance Services Inc and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Today y Mañana. I'm Alex. This is Michael. We're very excited to have you joining us on a beautiful morning here in Charlottesville, Virginia. It's not too humid. To be honest, I had this experience like four days ago, which shook me a little bit because I went outside. It was like 6.30, the sun was just getting up, and I went outside. And I said, why am I cold?

And literally, I was like, wait a second, what's going on here? And it was like 61 degrees, but I was like, this is, it feels cold. And it's like, it's so strange to be feeling that in the middle of August when it's like, for the past like month and a half, it's as you go outside in the morning, it's just hot. It's already hot, yeah. And now it's like, it's cool. Like I actually feel cold and I haven haven't felt cold in so long. It's like when you come out of winter and you finally feel warm.

You get a sunny day and you're like, I feel warm. This is what it feels like. I forgot what it felt like. It was the same thing with the cold. I got outside and I'm like, I feel a little cold. I haven't felt that in like two months now. It's true. It's true.

But it made for beautiful afternoons though. In the evening I went for a walk last night, and it was fantastic. I'm like, oh my goodness, I can breathe. I'm not sweating. Well, what's nice is when you walk from the studio to the car, you're not dripping with sweat, which we were for like a month and a half.

Yeah, you leave the Isle of Sibyl studio nice and cool, but by the time you get to the car, you're like, what's the matter? I'm exercising. Now it actually feels beautiful to do that. It's a beautiful day. If you are a little chilly, you can get a café con leche. You can get to your cozy place

and you can watch them today and mañana. We're going to be joined shortly in the show by two fantastic guests. First up is going to be Elena Stifler, a candle dealing business coach with Clean Watch Candles. And then later in the show, Brian Santos, a universal banker with C&F Bank.

So we've got a great show lined up. As always, love being here on the Outlaw Civil Network set. Many thanks to Emergent Financial Services, our presenter, and our fantastic partners at Matias Yon Realty, Credit Series Insurance, and Forward Adelante. And of course, thanks to you, our fantastic viewers. Be sure to send us any questions, uh that you may have for our guests uh make sure to like

and subscribe no you don't i'll do you doing well xavier will be proud exactly xavier will be he's always so happy when he remembers that because sometimes i'm doing on the show he goes and don't forget to like and subscribe and i said oh look how happy he is. It's like his whole day is done at that point. He's so happy. His day has been made. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I don't know about you, but I'm excited to jump right into today's show. Let's go. Let's do it. Let's do it. So we're excited to welcome first to the show this morning, Elena Stifler, candle dealing business coach with Clean Wax, selling Clean Wax candles. So we'll talk a little bit about that. Elena, thanks so much for coming on this morning thank you for having me I appreciate being here no it's a pleasure so for those who haven't met you yet maybe tell us a little bit about yourself

because you've been in this business for a while you've got a lot of experience so tell us how you first became interested in candles and wax candles truth Truthfully, in, oh, years ago, I had walked into my sister's house, and I was anti-direct sales. Walked into her house, and there was a candle sitting on her stove, and I thought, oh my goodness, Michelle quit smoking, and then I noticed it was a candle. At that point, I decided, maybe I need to look at this a little bit more. I asked her about the company. She said, oh, it's a small company in the town that we grew up in. And I had contacted them.

I found out they had a home party program. I contacted them. And from there, it's been history. I have been selling candles for 25 years now. That's amazing. So it started with one candle sitting on a stove of something that I loved. And I'm no longer with that company, but 25 years later, I am with Mia Bella Candles. And I absolutely love the brand.

That's fantastic. And could you tell us a little more about the brand? Because before the show, we were kind of talking about the difference between clean candles and potentially like toxic candles. Can you kind of talk a little bit about that? I can. There are several different types of wax. The first type of wax is your soy blend wax. Soy blend wax is not an organic wax, as many people believe. Soy blend, you have to have chemicals in order for soy to grow. When you mix the blend, it's with a paraffin wax. Paraffin is a petroleum product.

Mia Bellas has put together a program, and it's palm wax. Palm wax is the cleanest burning wax that you can use next to beeswax. Beeswax is very clean and slow-burning, whereas palm wax is a longer burning it's hard wax and it is virtually soot free it's a slow burning candle so when you get down into that jar at the end it's going to smell the same as it does at the top and you're not going to breathe in the toxins because there's no chemicals in palm wax and i say, what you burn is what you breathe. Absolutely.

Yes. Because you can see it. So you're saying, so the other candles are made with petroleum. Does that mean like you're inhaling like gasoline, basically? Petroleum, oil, refined oil. Yes. Wow. Bottom of the barrel.

Yeah. And it's affordable, which is why a lot of candle companies can have these massive sales, and the cost per ounce is actually more than what we charge, but they're using, I don't want to say bottom-of-the-barrel products, but a lot of them are because that is what's available to them. So a lot of it has to do with your wax, a lot of it has to do with your wicks, a lot of testing, but you want clean burning. People are trying to get their homes clean. They don't want to breathe in toxins.

There's a lot of health issues. And you want to remove those health issues. Burn a clean candle and watch the health issues sort of dissolve. Interesting. And it's from basically a palm tree, the wax? Yes. Okay. We harvest live.

We use a company out of Singapore. No, not Singapore. I'm sorry. Malaysia. And they do harvest live and it's a fair trade company. So they are employing workers that are able to support their families. The company itself is a sustainability and they want sustainability in the products. And they say, if we can't burn it in our house, we don't want you burning it in your house. That's important. I want to align myself with a company that has that value of caring about other people. And that's exactly what I've done with Miabella Candles. Clean Wax Candles is my company name that I use, and that's because I sell clean wax. Exactly. That's fantastic. So what are, I mean So what's kind of the variety of candles that are out there?

Are they different sizes, different scents? I would imagine there's a lot of variety that you can accomplish, even clean. Yes, we have over 100 different fragrances. And we experiment every single month. They're already building into 2025, 2026 fragrances. So we have different sizes. We have 8-ounce candles.

Our core candle is a 16-ounce candle. That is our primary one that we use for most of our sales. And we use that in our fundraising program as well. And then we have Mia Melts. And we do have some soap in our company, but it's not the biggest seller in our company. Candles, we are a fragrance company, so that's what we focus on. Can I ask a question?

Because I'm always fascinated by this. How do you get the fragrance inside a candle? Okay. When they melt the wax, they add the fragrance into the wax itself. They do the initial pour, and when they do that pour, they take it about three-quarters of the way up at the wax. They add the fragrance into the wax itself. They do the initial pour. And when they do that pour, they take it about three quarters of the way up at the jar. And then through that process,

in order to make sure there's no air bubbles, they will cut a hole in the top, refill the top of it to top it off, and that seals the fragrance and the wax inside. So that is how we're a fully fragrance candles some candle companies will only fragrance 4% we fully fragrance our candles to make sure that you're getting what

you purchase yeah interesting and how long like that how does it say it's a slow burn burn can how long does like a-ounce candle actually take? Let's say you just left it on the whole time. How long would it take to burn? Depending on the environment, you can have a 60-hour, you can have a 90-hour. Fresh brewed coffee is a 90-hour burning candle for me. A lot of it depends on your air circulation, if it's in front of a window, if it's under an air conditioning vent, if it's on a stove. It depends on where you have it at.

But the average is, we say 70 to 80 hours. Mine goes 60 to 90. The darker the wax, the longer the burn. The lighter the wax, the faster the burn. Oh, that's important to keep in mind. Yeah, if you want something that you just

want to leave on and forget it's there. Did you say coffee candle? Fresh fruit coffee. Wow, I think I got to get that from Mama. Does it work in the same way as coffee? If you sniff it up,

does it get the caffeine in it? Well, I don't think it's going to pour some caffeine into you. However, it does energize you if you like that kind of coffee. Yeah, I think I got this from Mama. I always complain.

I think she drinks too much coffee in my life. Maybe I'll get the candle. Well, it can give you that cup of coffee. Yeah, I think I get this from my mom, because I always complain, I think she drinks too much coffee, like four cups, I think I'll get the candle. Well, it's the illusion of caffeine, you know, your brain is like, oh, I have caffeine, it's like, not really, but you have the fragrance of it, you know, and I

think that was on the website, and you know, I mean, especially with fall approaching, you've got a whole bunch of, you know, your cinnamon buns, and your, is there, I'm guessing, is there like a pumpkin spice? Oh, of course. There's a pumpkin spice. Now, there also is a caramel pumpkin spice. There's pumpkin berry crumble.

So we have about seven different pumpkin fragrances, including pumpkin spice. Okay, but see, that's a question too. Like, so for the cinnamon bun fragrance, how do you get, because sometimes I smell that and it smells like cinnamon bun. How do you actually get a cinnamon bun smell in there? I'm confused. How does that happen? Well, we do have perfumers with the company and they make a blend. And then we test those blends. The company actually tests those blends and then they determine the most authentic blend that you can get. And that is how the fragrance is pulled together.

And how long does it usually take for you guys to kind of like test out a fragrance and then kind of put it in production? Well, that would be an answer, the question for the home office because they do that however i will tell you like i said we are into 2025 testing of fragrances because we already know the market of what's coming so we do put out a new fragrance every single month and yes that's a lot every month this month is s'mores ah yes so yeah that's that's a wonderful one that's a that's a wonderful one. That's a great one. You yourself, what have you and your clients seen? It's always amazing what I think a nice candle can do, but what have been some of the benefits that your clients have said,

yeah, this is why I keep coming back. This is what it's done for me and my household. Primarily, people that come back as returning customers, they come back because they know they're paying for an authentic fragrance. They know that they're paying for a healthy candle. It is fully sending their home, whether it's a room candle or whether it's a whole house candle. When they are spending their money,

they want to spend money on getting a fully fragranced candle. There's nothing more frustrating than buying a candle in a store, burning it for the first few times, and then there's no fragrance. Companies generally fragrance only 4%. We do that 100% fragrance. So that they want to spend their money wisely. And so they find me, I hashtag myself of where I will be at my events, and they come and find me to purchase their candles, or they call me up and place an order or go to my website. So there's always different ways to get the candles. And they also do subscriptions to get their monthly subscriptions in so they can get their candles every month. Every month, yeah. Because that's so key, because especially in today's world,

I think there is such a temptation. You see it all the time of, all right, here's the cheapest thing. But I think a lot of people are craving to go beyond what's the cheapest thing to know what is actually giving me a quality for what I am purchasing. And I think people are kind of craving that, and it explains the repeat customers of saying, I actually got what I bought this time, in a world where a lot of times that just doesn't happen.

No. And the one thing that's really nice is my customers know that I only represent myself and align myself with a quality product. So when I say I'm selling this, they are coming to me because they have trusted me over the years to give them a quality product. And I stand behind every product that I sell. They know you vetted it, that a real person has vetted what's being sold, which is key. What's it like over these years being, because I mean, let's say you function essentially as an entrepreneur. So what's that kind of experience been like being an entrepreneur?

I love it. I come from an entrepreneurial background. My father was a business owner and I learned from him. And it's important. I know at the end of the day, I can have a corporation pay me a wage that they say that I'm valued at or I can determine my own income. I determine my own income. So as an entrepreneur, at the end of the day, if I want to sell $1,000 in a day, I can make it happen. It's all in how much I want to work. So my sales are high in the company.

I sold over $80,000 in candles last year. Wow. So I work my business. If you want to make money, you have to work. As an entrepreneur, you cannot sit back and say, money is going to come to me, you have to find it. Yeah, I think that's a lesson that a lot of entrepreneurs that we've had on the show come with.

Entrepreneurship is extremely rewarding. Yes. Right? Because, like you said, you determine really how much you can grow and how much you can make. And you have the freedom to also align yourself only with things. You're not kind of beholden to, man, I don't like all these things that my employer does, but it's not my business because I'm employed by them. You get to kind of align yourself and determine the values of your own company.

But the flip side, I think, is always, if you're going to be successful, it is a lot of work. You don't work less because you're an entrepreneur. You work more because there is no 9 to 5. It doesn't just shut off at... I mean, maybe you have flexibility. You know, we've had people that, you know, okay, you know, Sunday is important to me, so I'm going to work Monday through Saturday, but I'm working my tail off Monday through Saturday.

And if I need to do something at 7 p.m., I'm doing it at 7 p.m. to make it work. I make my own schedule. I determine if I want to get up at 5.30 in the morning on a Saturday or if I want to sleep in. So I do that just by aligning my own schedule. So I do over 100 events a year. I know which days I can do them. I know which days I can't. I can make myself available to watch my youngest granddaughter or I could work. So I have that flexibility as being an entrepreneur, which is so rewarding because in a full-time job, I can't say, oh, I'm going to take off today to watch the baby or I'm taking off today to sell a candle.

So I can determine where I want to be and how much time I want to invest. That's fantastic. So, I mean, this has been, man, I've learned a lot. This has been fantastic. I had no idea about the palm. I always suspected some candles, you know, you could tell, like, all right, this is not the best quality. But I had no idea about the petroleum, and I'm like, whoa, okay, do not want to be inhaling that.

So, I mean, if people have been inspired as we have, what's the best way to learn more about and to get in touch with you? To get in touch with me, my website is cleanwaxcandles.com. You can also find me at hashtag cleanwaxcandles. And where's Elena? And where's Elena? Hashtag where's Elena? I'm someplace. Where are you?

You can always find me. She's on today, but not today. You don't have to look too hard. That's right. So hashtag where's Elena and Clean Waxed Handles. Clean Waxed Handles. And then cleanwaxedhandles.com. Perfect.

Perfect. Well, Elena, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it. Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been so rewarding, and I'm glad that I was able to share what Mia Bella does in the community. Absolutely.

Thanks so much. We're glad you were able to come on. Thank you. Thank you. So as we go ahead and rotate here from one rate to another, and, yeah, that's fantastic. I feel like it's been one of the great themes of today, Manana, that we've loved is just being able, I think, in a world,

especially on the Internet, that's inundated with your Amazons, your online retailers, your things where you just click the first thing and it always says imported and you're like I know exactly what country this was imported from and I know the quality that it's coming from when it's not good I think one of the beauties of today is to be able to feature people

that are making real things and that are going beyond the mentality of I'm selling the cheapest thing to I'm selling something of quality that people know when they're buying it, they're going to get what they paid for. Yeah. And I think people have been kind of trending towards that post COVID, where I mean, we've seen a lot of people health wise, starting to focus exactly what they're eating, you know, where my food's coming from, who, you know, who produced my food, you know, who packaged my food,

all these questions, right? And then now you come to candles, and you're kind of learning, oh, wait a second, this is what they're putting in candles, this is what I'm inhaling. I don't want to be inhaling petroleum. You do all this work to control what you put in your body, but then you don't realize that every day

you've got something burning that's sending petroleum into your lungs. Into your lungs. Yeah, into your... Exactly. So it's important to kind of think holistically, okay, what are all the things I'm putting in my house? Because we've had guests on before, too,

that talk about, you know, the body absorbs more than you think it does. And it's not just what you eat, it's what you surround yourself with in your environment. And like you said, I think we've had a tendency sometimes as Americans that we get inundated with so many cheap products. We're just like, well, let me just get the cheap. Let me just get the cheap.

And you realize how it's harming your body. Now you're kind of taking a different approach. And you know what? My health should be paramount to your importance because if you're dead. You can't buy it back. Yeah, exactly. You can't buy it back. You only have one life.

So at that point, it's like, let me start focusing more on what exactly is good for me, whether it's candles, whether it's food, whether it's, you know. Soaps and shampoos. Soaps, exactly, shampoos, all these different things that you put on your body, in your body. It's important. Absolutely, absolutely. So we've got some guests tuning in. Obviously, Nick Irby watching the show

as always. Monita Miller from Montana tuning in this morning. Thanks. One of our favorite viewers. One of our most loyal viewers. Absolutely. Love it. Thanks so much for tuning in this morning. We've got another great guest lined up for everyone this morning. We're excited to welcome

to the show Brian Santos. He is a universal banker with C&F Bank. Brian, thanks so much for coming on this morning. Thank you very much, guys. Good morning. How y'all doing? Doing well. I'm doing all right. Fantastic. Fantastic. So kind of similar vein, because first time having you on, which is always fantastic. So for those who haven't had a chance to meet you yet, tell us maybe a little bit about yourselves, how you first became interested in this line of business. Yeah, so back in 2022, I was 19 years old at the time. I was a manager for a restaurant back in New York.

I was born and raised out in Long Island. Oh, okay. Where in Long Island, may I ask? So like literally smack dab in the middle of Long Island our dad was born in well not born but he lived in Queens and sunny side at the end of Long Island

and yeah they used to have a house out in Montauk all the way at the end Montauk is beautiful it is a beautiful place we have very fond memories of Montauk yeah so back in 22 I was manager for a restaurant and at the time I was like

I need a more professional and structured career I can't manage a restaurant for the rest of my life and so one of my mom's friends reached out to me and said there's a there's a teller position out here in Charlottesville. And I was like, okay, this right here, this is my call to action right here. So I went ahead and took a leap of faith. And so I started off as a teller back in 2023, I believe, and then ended up as a universal banker.

That's awesome. Going up the ranks. Yes, sir ranks to be sure and serving more people. Yeah, so I know you're a universal banker. We wanted to ask, because we have a lot of Latino viewers, what are some of the common challenges Latinos face when it comes to kind of banking? So I believe number one is the language barrier. So that is definitely one that, of course, I mean, I believe number one is the language barrier so that is definitely one that of course I mean

I believe everybody notices yeah um yeah I mean just getting their finances uh straightened up and running and such uh and then setting up for retirement as well yeah there's another one as well that you know um I believe that the hispanic community kind of just overlooks retirement and i believe it's something that must be put out there and for them to notice and you know start building up for uh of course retirement and stuff yeah and how do you how do you bridge that kind of gap sometimes because unfortunately you know knowing a lot of latinos you know a lot of people have always often said the same thing They're very cautious with their money in the sense that they still keep it in cash or try

to have it in a jar here. How do you bridge that gap to have them trust you and say, listen, it's fine to have some money in a jar, but you can't keep it in cash all the time under your bed. You have to put it in a bank or invest it. How do you help Latinos you help latinos kind of get to that point i believe building report and trust

is one uh to kind of like you know then once that is built of course you suggest and recommend and tell them about like the benefits and such uh to kind of of course you know for them to look at and say oh okay yeah this is definitely a route that I want to be taking. So I think a lot of it is, I mean, it's funny, because we help people save for retirement as their day job, apart from today and manana, right? And I think a lot of it is, like you said, the language barrier, particularly as it pertains to financial jargon,

because it's one thing thing because it's funny, Xavier, our dad he grew up in Cuba, came to America when he was like 7 so he's got the Spanish down but he always jokes that his Spanish is kind of the Spanish of like a 5th grader in the sense of

at some point you don't necessarily learn and it's true for Americans the financial jargon what is a CD? What does that word even mean? A savings account, a checking account, stocks, bonds. Sometimes you need someone to tell you what these are in Spanish because you might have learned English, but you don't automatically, you go to English class,

and English is a second language. They're not teaching you the words for the, you know, the stock market, the S&P 500 and things like this. So those are things that you kind of need to build that trust with for someone to help explain what these things are and how they function. That's right, yeah.

You know, and so it's, so what's it, how do you primarily work with clients, work with Latinos and assist them? So the location where we're at right now, we're just starting to dip our toe in. So the bank is just starting to dip their toe into Charlottesville. So right now my job is really to just kind of go out to businesses, local businesses and such. And so my target is mainly, of course, Hispanic businesses and such. Organizations, nonprofits such as Sin Barretas,

which have you heard of? Yeah, I saw Sin Barretas. And then like many different restaurants and Hispanic-owned businesses and such. I would reach out to them, talk to them a little bit about what we what we do um and of course my skill of helping them out and giving them services in spanish and such so particularly for a business would how important would you say it is for someone to have a separate business checking account like that's not being run out of like

their personal their personal banking? How such? I'm sorry. How important would it be to have your personal checking account, but to not be running your business through that, but to actually have a business checking? I believe it is very efficient to have both in the same institution, rather than having them both in separate locations. In random places. Yeah.

That makes sense. That makes sense also. So what's, like, the process, like, of working with you? When, like, someone walks in and says, okay, Brian, I need some help. How do you kind of work with them and walk them through the steps? Yep.

So first off, of course, I mean, you've got to introduce yourself. You've got to introduce yourself. You've got to tell them what your name is and such. And so my approach is, of course, I try to make them feel at home. So I'll offer them a cup of coffee. I'll offer them a bottle of water and such. And so if they're requesting to open a checking account, I don't just want to open a checking account for them.

I want to know how I could deeply help them. And so we sit down, ask and see if they got any questions or concerns other than, of course, having their main task completed and such. You know, like, for example, if they want to finance a home, which, of course, that is definitely one goal that has stood out, that has been mentioned to me from a lot of Hispanics. Interesting. Yeah, looking into home buying. Yeah. And so, you know, some may not have credit established.

And so, you know, we sit down, we talk about how to establish credit and such and give them a few tips and pointers and such and just kind of help them build their way up and getting that goal accomplished, of course. Which is key, because I think I've read on some

and seen on some shows, even on this network, I mean, Real Talk with Keith Smith has covered a number of times that Latinos are one of the biggest home buying groups in the country right now, and it's going to grow even further in the future.

And so, it's, but one of the key things is that kind of the chicken and the egg of credit, where, like, you need credit to get credit, but you need to have credit to build credit. So it's so important to kind of get in that vein, because especially I think for a lot of Latinos that maybe are the first generation in this country

or maybe the second generation, right? A lot of countries where we've come from, I mean, my dad's Cuba, you think about Venezuela and places like that, the banking system is not the most trustworthy institution. So you come here with the mindset of, okay, banks are not immediately trustworthy. I think a lot of native-born people are like, okay, bank, yeah, everybody gets a bank account. But if you're coming out of Cuba or Venezuela or Argentina where you've seen your money just, the value of your money just plummets, right?

You're coming from a mentality of, no, no, no, the bank is the last place I immediately go. First place is my house, and I'm not doing, I've even had, I knew a Latino realtor, and she would always say that some of her clients, when she would broach the subject of credit or mortgages, would say, no, no, no, they would say basically the equivalent of, I don't do drugs.

Right? Because, no quiero entrar a la garrita. Like, I don't want to get hooked on credit cards and stuff. But the problem is, when you go for that mortgage, you're going to need some kind of credit history. So it's, can you use the credit card or some other type of credit to build your history rather than, and not because you want to get hooked on it, but because you need some kind of history. Yeah, no, that's right. Yeah, definitely. So, do you help people kind of, all right, here are some tips and ways to build credit? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, of course, if there is something that I don't know, I refer them to my manager, of course, which he is very, very helpful in that area as well. But, yeah, I mean, so coming from a very poor kind of area back

in New York, I would see a lot of neglect and avoidance from the Hispanic community towards the Hispanic community whenever they request something that they very much need. And so, of course, growing up, seeing that, that, of course, broke my heart. And I was like, you know, I want to be useful to my own people, of course broke my heart and I was like you know I want to be I want to be useful yep to my own people of course and you know it's kind of what I'm doing now you know to be honest with you so yes serving serving the community and

helping them take that next step yeah have the drive right we have the drive as Latinos we have the the entrepreneurship We have the wherewithal. It's just sometimes getting that first step of help. Someone to say, yeah, I know what you need to do to navigate this system, which is new or which you've been excluded from in the past to help you take the next step and grow.

That's awesome. And Miguel Corradin watching the show with Serious Insurance saying saludos a los amigos and enjoying the show. So Miguel all kind of do the same thing in the insurance world. Giving back and helping the Latino community to grow on that side of the equation.

So Brian, it's been fantastic. If people want to find out more and importantly get in touch with you and reach out, what are the best ways? Where can they find you? Where can they get in touch with you? You can visit our branch. Our address is 3920 Lenox Avenue in Charlottesville. So is it the one like right at the end of Stonefield, like right past? So you pass Costco

to that other section? Yep, that's right. Okay, yeah. Yeah, so I work for that branch there and we also have another branch here downtown right in the mall and you can also reach me via phone number four three four two eight four uh four four two two as well uh be more than happy to answer any questions fantastic awesome so just can't miss it there's one here downtown there's one on stonefield you can't miss the stone one if you're at costco it's and we know everyone goes to Costco.

It's staring you right in the face. It's right there. So, Brian, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for coming on. Thank you so much for having me, guys. Appreciate it a lot. All right. So as we swap here, this is actually a great segue, I think, to our third topic.

Yeah, because I know you had wanted to talk a little bit about inherited IRAs because we've had some experience in the past couple weeks with that. Some good, some bad. I know we've learned a lot of stuff about that. I know you particularly wanted to share. Brian touched on it, right?

Saving for retirement is a key aspect. A lot of times when you are saving for retirement is a key aspect. And a lot of times when you are saving for retirement, one of the things that's going to happen is, as you pass some of those retirement savings on to your kids, they're going to inherit those assets. And what we've been seeing a lot of is, in particular, a lot of the ways people are going to save for retirement right is going to

be in IRAs which is individual retirement account and even if you're in a 401k so let's say your company's giving you a 401k and it's not an individual retirement account at some point that 401k at some point in your life is probably going to become some version of an IRA probably going to go into a rollover IRA and be inherited. And there are very particular rules for how that happens. And just wanted to turn it over because we've seen a lot of people now navigating those rules and finding out what you can do, what you can't do, and what you thought you could do but can't. May I quickly interject?

So the first question I would ask is, is there a difference between an IRA and an inherited IRA? Are they two separate different things? They are. So they are two different things. So an IRA is something owned by you. So, in other words, my Roth IRA is under the name of Al Chirpy, right? And the money in there is being held in my name.

It's invested in stocks and bonds etfs mutual funds and so forth right now when someone passes away with an ira if the spouse is inheriting it if it's your your wife or your husband that's inheriting it that immediately becomes theirs so there's no problem there in other words if god if God forbid something happens to me, my wife, my IRA now belongs to my wife. And she can move everything into her own IRA. She literally just has to change the name. It goes from one person to another, right? The challenge comes when it's a child or a non-spouse.

You leave it to your nephew or your son or your daughter because now you're facing rules because the IRS is in there saying this account whether it was a 401k or an IRA it's grown tax free for a long time and now we want ours the IRS is like we want our piece now

and we're not going to let you keep this tax free forever so what happens in this case is, especially under new rules, particularly if this happens going forward, there were some grandfathered rules, but under the new SECURE Act going forward, you're facing what's called a 10-year rule, meaning when you inherit someone, so the way an inherited IRA works is when someone passes away and you as their child inherit their IRA, it becomes an inherited IRA.

It has a new structure. You can't just keep it in their old IRA and take money out of it. So it only passes without that rule if it's from spouse to spouse? Exactly. Or there's some other exceptions

but mostly spouse to spouse. And so it has to become, it has to transform from a 401k or an IRA into an inherited IRA. And when this transformation happens, right, this paperwork, who does it, now there are new rules in place. One of which is the 10-year rule, meaning at the end of 10 years, all the money in that inherited IRA needs to be done. You need to have taken out all the money from that IRA. If it's traditional, that means every time you take money out, you're going to pay taxes on it. If it's a Roth, you don't pay taxes on the money coming out, but it needs to all be done in 10 years. In other words, at the end of 10 years, that money needs to be debited.

That inherited IRA needs to be empty. And if it's not empty, the IRS is going to make you take all of it out or penalize you if you keep leaving it in there. So that's the first rule. The second thing is, depending how old your parent was, if they already were taking RMDs, so an RMD is required minimum distribution, meaning when you turn 73, and it'll, depending on how young you are, go up to 75. But right now, if you turn 73, the IRS says you need to start taking money out of this because we want to tax the money that comes out. It's been tax-free for a long time.

We want some taxes. So you have to take money out according to a formula once that starts once someone turns 73 that process cannot be stopped meaning death does not stop that process so if i turn 73 10 years later i pass away and my child inherits my ira they need to still keep taking the rmds based on how old I would be. They don't get to wait 10 years and then take all the money out at the end. They need to keep taking RMDs. And at the end of 10 years,

whatever's left has to come out. So that's a very specific rule. Another thing a lot of people don't know that we've had people encounter is they're very familiar typically. So let's say you have a 401k, and you want to move it from one IRA to another IRA. You have several ways to do this. You can do a direct rollover where you just internally move it from one IRA, and it goes to another institution, an IRA at another institution.

It just moves from one to the other. There's also what's called the indirect rollover where you say, okay, I have an IRA. I want to take out $50,000, a check that's sent to me, put it in my bank account, and then I write a check for $50,000 to my next IRA. I have 60 days to do this. It's called the 60-day rule. But I can basically indirectly move it from one IRA to another, take out the money, put it in my checking account, write a check to my new one. A lot of people think that you can do this with inherited IRAs. You cannot.

If you take – if money leaves that inherited IRA, it is, you have made a withdrawal. I mean, if it goes direct, no problem. If the check is made out to your next IRA, no problem. If you get a check, you cash that check in your checking account,

you're done. You have made an irreversible withdrawal from your inherited IRA, and you are going to pay taxes on the whole amount. you're done. You have made an irreversible withdrawal from your inherited IRA and you were going to pay taxes on the whole amount. And there's no call in the IRS saying I made a mistake. It wasn't supposed to go there. It was a boo-boo.

Nope. It is an irreversible. What's the best way for someone to actually take out that money? You say you have like 10 years. What's the best way to kind of avoid the least amount of taxes? So that will depend on where you see your future situation being right because basically what's going to happen is any money in particular we're talking traditional here if it's a Roth then taxes don't come into play but but you don't have to take all the money out anyway if it's a traditional what you're trying to figure out is what year in the next 10 years am i going to have the lowest tax rate right so the

money will grow tax-free whatever's left in that account right so you're weighing tax-free growth against oh my tax is going to be a lot higher in 10 years are they going to be a lot do i think they're going to be lower how much do i not want to bump myself up to a tax bracket new tax practice for instance right one possible incentive to be well wait i'll just take out everything in the 10th year in other words i let my money grow for 10 years tax free and take out everything in year number 10 well the problem is if if by year 10 there's like 400000 in there and you take it all out in year 10 well your tax rate is no longer the 10 or 15% tax bracket

you were in 10 years ago the government is going to say you made congratulations you made $400,000 this year we're taxing the top end of this money at the 39% tax rate so now suddenly you're paying a higher tax bracket than you would have paid if you took this money out little by little now suddenly you're paying a higher tax bracket than you would have

paid if you took this money out little by little particular if you're not making a lot of money in pension or social security and you're in like a 15 or 20 tax bracket you might be better off paying 20 on this money little by little than having the top rate the top portion of this money suddenly taxed at 39% or 36%, 32%. So you need to weigh what tax bracket are you bumping yourself into in year 10 if you decide to just wait and take everything out at the last minute. On the other hand, if you don't think you'll be in a high tax bracket, then there's a benefit because once the money, let's say you don't need the money and you take out $50,000 and then you reinvest it. But now it's taxable.

Well, now every year you're paying taxes on the growth, whereas if it had been in the inherited IRA, you wouldn't have been paying taxes on the growth every year. You'd only pay taxes on the money you took out. So you need to weigh those two things and you need to weigh them and make sure that when you're doing these transactions that you never have the money sent to your checking account unless it's money that you actually intend to pull out because if you're trying to move it from one place to another and it goes to your checking account, you're in trouble another mistake that people will make one place to another and it goes to your checking account, you're in trouble.

Another mistake that people will make is they will leave, this is for your side as you're saving for retirement. So if you're a person saving, you want to leave something to your kids, right? Sometimes there's a temptation, let me leave my IRA money to a trust. Depending on how you've structured the trust, that can be a terrible idea. Two reasons. First off, in an IRA, you can name people to receive.

You can put beneficiaries who receive a portion of your IRA, and you can write that into the very IRA itself. You don't need it. In fact, it bypasses your will. So you don't need a will to leave money in an IRA to specific individuals and have them be able to easily access it when you're gone. You can write that into the IRA itself as beneficiaries. If you pass away, they contact the company, say, hey, my father has passed away. I'm a beneficiary of his IRA.

Help me convert this to an inherited IRA, and then this money, these funds are now mine. That bypasses probate. So you don't need a will to do that. In fact, if you do have a will, the IRA supersedes that. So you don't need to make a trust in order to take an IRA and distribute those funds for your children. If you do decide to do a trust route, a mistake we've seen a lot is depending on the type of trust that you put in there. The moment those funds leave the IRA and the trust becomes the owner, that's anything, especially if you do a trust instead of a spouse,

that's taxable now, whereas it would not have been taxable if it were a spouse. So we've run into this where people have put the wrong type of trust, being the beneficiary of their IRA. Suddenly now all of this is taxable and it's irreversible. You cannot go back in time and say, no, I don't want, now that I know this, I don't want the trust to be the beneficiary, I want my spouse. I want to be the beneficiary.

It's too late. It's an irreversible transaction. Wow. So people really need to kind of talk over with people before they actually start thinking about it. Exactly. And I would say you need to have a team that you're talking with because a lot of times the reason this will happen, we'll notice,

people will come to us after the fact, right? And, you know, they're not clients of ours. They're brand new. They're looking to talk to a financial advisor, right? And their stuff, it's too late. The previous spouse passed away. They've inherited. And what happens is the only person they'd ever talked to in the past was a lawyer, a estate planner, right?

And so a lawyer is going to look at things from a legal perspective. What are the type of trusts that you can make that give you some control over the money, that take care of a special needs child and so forth? But a lot of times that lawyer is not talking with your tax guy and the two of them are not talking with your financial planner. Or you have a lawyer but you don't have a tax guy or a financial planner or you have two out of three and that's where the mistakes happen. Because you don't have all three together, you don't have the CPA there to say, well, no, wait a second. If you do this, that's going to be taxable. You don't have the financial planner saying, well, no, wait a second. If you do this, that's going to be taxable. You don't have the financial planner saying, well, wait a second. There's a way to do this that doesn't require a trust but can serve the same purpose,

and now your money grows tax-free. So you really want to make sure as you go into estate planning, as you think about your retirement and you think about what do I want my spouse or my children to inherit in the event that something happens to me you need to get your team to actually be talking to each other to make sure that when you write these documents they make sense legally right but that they also make sense from a tax perspective and they make sense from a financial perspective because a lot of

times people worry about the legal part, is my special needs child going to be taken care of? But not thinking about, yes, but am I hampering my special needs child financially? Am I putting them in a difficult tax and financial situation because I'm only talking to someone on the legal side? And vice versa. Am I doing all the stuff my tax guy told me to do this, this, this, and this, but now my special needs child or my children have no idea how to access this money.

I've lost, we've had some people that lose the trust documents and the trust, so they're at a big firm, a Fidelity of Andard, right? They lose the original trust documents and their lawyer dies. Right? They can't get the money from their spouse

because a trust was the beneficiary and that financial institution will not give you the money without the original trust documents. People assume they have them. I sent these documents to this big company 20 years ago.

They have it. Sometimes they don't. They've got the first page and they're like, I don't care that I have the first page. I need the originals. And if you don't have the originals and your lawyer doesn't, your law office doesn't have the originals, you can be in big trouble. Because they will not distribute that money to you.

And then 20 years will pass by and it will be unclaimed money. Wow. So you need to be very careful in doing these things because if you're the beneficiary, So you need to be very careful in doing these things because if you're the beneficiary, all you need to do is show them a debt certificate and your ID. If a trust is the beneficiary, debt certificate, ID, trust, proving that you are the beneficiary of the trust.

And a lot of times spouses will do this when it's not necessary. In other words, the spouse was going to get this anyway. You didn't need the trust. But you made the trust anyway for maybe a tax purpose or something, but now you can't get the money. So you need to be very careful in how inherited objects work in this country. Wow. Thank you, Alex, for that. That was quite a boatload of information. It is. I know it's a lot. I would say the number one thing you need to do is when you're going the process of estate planning,

bring a financial planner or a financial advisor and a CPA into the picture because you're going to want all three of these aspects covered when you go down this road. So that would be my tip. That's Alex's tips for the day. My tip for the day because it is a lot. And it's a lot because there are a lot of rules and regulations around it. So inherited IRAs don't work the same as IRAs. Let's put it that way.

That's my second tip of the day. There are differences. You can't do the same things that you could do with one. So that's my tip for there. That's our finance topic for today. Thanks for asking the questions. Thanks for answering it. My pleasure.

It's been a good one. I feel like we covered a lot of areas. Yeah, we certainly did. Entrepreneurship, some health, we did some finance, we did some banking. So always fantastic to cover those areas. And we had on Miguel, was it a couple weeks ago, talking the insurance part.

So, you know, there's always resources out there, whether it's Brian at CNF Bank, whether it's Medell at Sirius Insurance, whether it's us at Emergent Financial Services, there's always some resources out there for people. Absolutely. For both our community at large and also our Latino community. You know, there's good resources out there. That's fantastic.

We have some great desks lined up for next week as well. We're going to be joined by Dwayne and Robin Keenan-Jones from the Torture Life. Talking about the Torture Life with Torture Racing, it's a lot of experiences that they procure here in Charlottesville. A lot of things that you can do.

So especially as the weather, the fall comes in, you're like, what are some fun things I can do on the weekends? We'll be talking with them about that. I look forward to it. That'll be really enjoyable. So it's been great. Thanks for everyone who was tuning in and commenting. It was great to be on here with you. Always a pleasure being with you, Alex.

Yeah, it's fantastic. The duo back together. Exactly. You know, appreciate everyone who tuned in this morning. Appreciate all our fantastic partners, Matias, Yon Realty, Tradit, Serious Insurance, Forward, Adelante. Of course, thanks to Emerge Financial Services, our presenter. Thanks for Judah behind the camera.

Do it, work on the magic and the I Love Seawall Network set. We look forward to seeing you all next weekend. Be sure to, I would normally say stay warm or stay cool, but I don't need to do that. So just enjoy this beautiful weather. Enjoy the weekend. We will see you all next week. But until that time, as we like to close it out, hasta mañana. God bless you.