The Financial Huddle | Real Money Conversations for Financial Literacy

Episode 3: Planning Through Every Phase of Life

• Keystone Financial Group • Season 1 • Episode 3

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In this episode of The Financial Huddle, Brian, Ed, and Ryan dive into the power of focus - in family, finances, and your future. From navigating wedding season and NFL internships to strategic college funding and business-owner tax planning, the team highlights how intentional financial strategies can create confidence and certainty at every life stage. 

They also explore long-term care planning, Social Security optimization, and the rising need for tax-free retirement strategies. 

Whether you're saving for college, running a business, or planning for retirement, this episode has something you need to hear! Listen closely to learn how to have a better game plan.

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Disclosure: Information contained in this podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only, and should not be considered as financial advice. Financial Planning and Advisory Services are offered through Prosperity Capital Advisors (“PCA”), an SEC registered investment adviser. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Keystone Financial Group and PCA are separate, non- affiliated entities. PCA does not provide tax or legal advice.

Announcer:

The Financial Huddle does not provide tax, legal, financial, or other professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with their own advisors in these areas. All right, everybody, huddle up. The play calls in. This is The Financial Huddle. Ready, break.

Brian Minier:

Welcome once again everybody to the Financial Huddle. I am Brian Menear. I am joined by my business partners and co-hosts, Ed B. Miller. Hello, hello. And Ryan Fleming.

Ryan Fleming:

Let's get it done today. Let's do it.

Brian Minier:

Let's get it done. Very good. Ed, you are in the thick of wedding planning season.

Ed Beemiller:

What's going on with that? I am. And not just wedding planning season. That's right. Weddings. I have the pleasure of both of my children, my daughter's 30 and my son's 20, are both getting married within less than a month of each other. We need to have a prayer vigil after this session. Let me tell you, and thank God for appropriate financial planning, because as most people know listening, weddings are not cheap. And my daughter, and we love the fact that she is, is actually getting married up in our summer community. in northern maine and so that throws a whole nother glitch of you know we have people coming in from everywhere it's not necessarily easy to get there All prices are about double what they are within the continental U.S.

Brian Minier:

Lobster bisque isn't cheap, man. No, it's not. Hey,

Ed Beemiller:

I get my lobsters cheap. I get them straight from the lobstermen down at the dock. That's

Brian Minier:

called poaching.

Ed Beemiller:

That one, no, no, no. Let me tell you, that's a serious offense up there in Maine. That's

Brian Minier:

phenomenal.

Ed Beemiller:

You pick up any traps and you don't have appropriate licenses. I mean, you get put away. A little more of a slap on the wrist. I mean, you don't mess with it. That's the economy up there. Don't do that.

Ryan Fleming:

In 2004, I was playing in the Eastern League, and Portland was in AA for the Red Sox. We had an off day, so we went down to the wharf. I'd never been to Maine before in my life. We ate in this little tin shack right by the wharf. Boat pulled in. This place was just big enough to have a circle bar, ice all around it. Guy walked in with a bucket full of clams and lobsters, dumped the lobster I said, I want that one and that one. $14.95 for one lobster. Best meal I've ever had in my life.

Ed Beemiller:

All right, so $14.95. If we get them right from the lobstermen, we're probably paying about $6, $7 for a pound and a quarter. For our seafood lovers out there, ain't nothing like a Maine lobster. Nope.

Brian Minier:

But you're in the thick of it,

Ed Beemiller:

planted too, pulling your hair out. Yeah, I'm not pulling my hair out as much. I am obviously the father of the bride, and I'm not pulling my hair out as much. father of the groom and my wife and my daughter are talking several times a day and have been for about three four months and it is all wedding planning are you in avoidance mode no i just if if if my opinion is asked which is infrequently i i will interject outside of that i just i just get the uh invoices and when bills are due and how much you know this cost and that cost and i've i've gone beyond trying to say well wait a minute it's Isn't there something cheaper or can we do this? Not a fight to pick when your daughter gets married once a year. Hopefully not once a year. Once in their lifetime is what I'm hoping. I was going to be willing to pay for some counseling sessions. I may

Brian Minier:

need it. I wish you luck. I look forward to attending one of those. Alright, Ryan. I've been watching your son's Instagram and I see he's on on LinkedIn now and he's got a pretty cool internship. It's a miracle. Yeah.

Ryan Fleming:

Um, yeah, he, he, he really does really excited for him. He landed a paid internship with the Cleveland Browns and that's starting here real soon. I mean, gosh, a paid internship from an NFL team. It's a, it's a good resume builder, great experience. And, um, I think he's excited for the opportunity. And hopefully he'll have some good stories to tell us. Hopefully he can bring some winning culture

Ed Beemiller:

to the finals. Maybe he can give us a little inside information on who's going to start a quarterback for the Browns this year. Who's QB1 this year? Yeah, QB1. Yeah, yeah. That's great.

Ryan Fleming:

Starting up real soon. And it works out good because, you know, he goes to Baldwin-Wallace University, and it's just right there, you know.

Brian Minier:

Yeah, for those of you that don't know, Ryan's son and my oldest go to school together. They're both going to be rising seniors this year. Isn't that crazy? It's hard to believe. Isn't it crazy to say that? Reed plays baseball at BW, and Josh plays football. So we're going to be getting ready for the final season here. It's interesting. Josh has an internship at Dayton, at Dayton 24-7. How about that? Yeah. Reppin'.

Ed Beemiller:

Reppin' UD. Great timing on that. My daughter went to UD. So I do have a place in my heart. Although, you know, this is my alma mater here. Kenyon College. This was unplanned today. This was unplanned. So

Ryan Fleming:

this is Dayton's, my alma mater. This is your daughter's alma mater.

Brian Minier:

I'm wearing lobsters. You're wearing my lobsters. That's right. There we go. We didn't even plan that. We did not plan that. That's how good we are, folks. That's how good we are. I was talking to Josh earlier in the week about his internship, and he really wants to get into broadcasting over this last year. Him doing a lot of spots on the radio, calling different games.

Ed Beemiller:

I've heard a few of those softball, women's softball games for the BW. Seriously, he's talented. WBWC.

Brian Minier:

He's talented. Try to stream a little bit of that. If he's listening to that, he'll appreciate that. Shout out, Joshy. It's really interesting, though. He's been thinking about broadcasting. One of the guys that, being a football player and getting into broadcasting, he actually looks up to Tom Brady, out of all people. Who doesn't? Has it all, right? With And the thing about Tom Brady and getting into broadcasting is we were talking a little bit about that transition, what that looks like. But what I've always been fascinated with Tom Brady is his ability to change a culture. It was interesting in his career, he went to Tampa Bay and changed that culture around, and they won a Super Bowl. And I think a lot of that has to do with his focus, with his ability to just get in there. This is the mission. This is what we want to get done. And he's able to not only do it for himself, but he's able to create a culture where the people around him are able to do

Ed Beemiller:

that. Most people felt he was well on the downside of his career when he left, and yet he was able to go into a new organization and bring that culture and that focus.

Ryan Fleming:

This actually, spur of the moment, this actually made me think of a quote. So I actually looked this quote up. I mean, because this hits it the nail on the head perfectly. This is a quote from Steve Jobs about focus. And he said, people think focus means saying yes to the thing that you've got to focus on, but that's not what it means at all. He says, it means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are out there. You have to pick very carefully. And When you bring up that analogy about him, you can't think of too many other people that were just laser focused on what to focus his time and energy on. Peyton Manning might be in that same,

Brian Minier:

but that laser focus. Just locked in and being able to change people. And I was thinking about that and just thinking about focus, mission, and how important that is to every organization and every group. And that's something that we have, when we first started our business, we Yeah. And I remember when we

Ed Beemiller:

first started Keystone, us sitting down for... Ours, going through wordsmithing, going through what do we do, what do we want our mission to be, and what we came up with, and it's very prominent in our offices, is we provide personalized financial services that create confidence and certainty throughout your life.

Ryan Fleming:

During all phases.

Ed Beemiller:

Yep, all phases of your life. And that's important. And, of course, anyone can kind of just say, oh, yeah, yeah, okay, you basically do planning, you put a plan together, and you're good at it, and everyone should just believe that's the thing to do. But that whole confidence and certainty, and Ryan, you've talked a lot about this, and you kind of use this statement quite a bit, is we try to avoid what?

Ryan Fleming:

Taking unnecessary

Ed Beemiller:

risks. You know, know, like, and trust. That's the other thing. Confidence and certainty as you build that relationship. And that's a very important part of what we do on a daily basis with our clients.

Ryan Fleming:

Yeah. If people can accomplish what they're trying to accomplish, whatever that is, got to define that. But if you can accomplish what you're trying to accomplish without taking unnecessary risks, then why would you?

Ed Beemiller:

Right.

Brian Minier:

Right? Yeah. And I think part of that with all phases, you know, there's different phases that are going to allow you to either take... some risk or at certain parts you have to identify where you don't want to take them right so and i know when we we work really hard on trying to have those personalized services and we do that in different ways yeah ryan i know when you are looking at your specific practice you have some different areas of focus that help uh the people that you work with in those different uh time periods in their life

Ryan Fleming:

yeah you used a good word that's in our mission statement during all phases of life and so one of the things I focused the majority of my career on is the phase of college planning you know families that have rising high schoolers parents of sixth seventh and eighth graders freshmen sophomore juniors and seniors in college and during that phase of life where they're trying to juggle saving for college but also knowing that they have this massive burden staring them in the face called a college education potentially. I mean, as we sit here today, I mean, there's dozens of schools that have a sticker price over 90,000 plus dollars. There's several that have 100 plus thousand dollars per year sticker price. And so during that phase in life, you know, you have multiple kids like I do and you do and Ed, you know, it's not just one kid or two kids. You're looking at potentially two, three, four, $500,000 of a sticker price during a time where you're trying to safe for retirement and there may be no more time in their life more prevalent where more money will exit their future retirement dollar bucket than what they're doing trying to fund gaps of college and so we focused a lot I've built a lot I've focused a lot of my time and energy engineering a team to help people usher through that to pick the right schools for the right value to become better shoppers if you will for this thing thing called college, to try to maximize an ROI. If I asked 1,000 people, how would you justify a good return on your investment for college planning, I don't think I'd get very good answers, to be quite honest with you. I don't blame them in some way. I understand that their focus is drawn in a lot of different places like paying the bills and maybe the car needs replaced. So we talk about focus, laser focus. 16, 17, 18 years goes by and boom, college is breathing in your face. You haven't focused on it very much. But the reality is that we have a suite of services, an amazing team, and ways that we can partner with people to mitigate the cost of college. And I always tell people College is kind of like investing into a house. You would never invest into a house. You wouldn't pay $500,000 for a house that was appraised for $200,000. That's a bad investment. But the reality is that many millions of people buy college that way because they're not focused on it, and it's just a whammy right

Ed Beemiller:

in front of them. How do most of your clients, when they come in and you sit down with them, what's their plan for paying for college?

Brian Minier:

Yeah.

Ed Beemiller:

Before you talk to them. And I'll jump in because I have a great story with that. University of Dayton, where my daughter went. She had taken her ACTs a couple times, and at that time, I don't know if UD still does it, but they superscored the ACT. So that just basically means that you take the top score from each segment, and then that equals your total average ACT. And There was one area, and my daughter, very intelligent, did very well in classes. She would say herself, wasn't the greatest test taker when it came to those types of tests, those kind of more general tests. And so she was at a point where she's like, I'm not taking it anymore. She needed one point higher to actually get to the next level. scholarship level and in the next scholarship level would gave her another like five six thousand a year so over four years that's real money so i basically made her take it kicking and screaming i i don't believe you're making me do this you know and she was not happy about it guess what happened She got that additional point, which then qualified her for that additional...

Ryan Fleming:

30 grand?

Ed Beemiller:

Yeah, 20, 30 grand over the course of her career at UD. That's real money.

Ryan Fleming:

Right. And in my workshop, what you just described there is what we would call, in our office, as a wealth transfer. And a wealth transfer, for our audience out there, is simply defined as money that you would unknowingly or unnecessarily give away throughout the course of your lifetime. So in this particular case, because she studied, she put forth the effort, She focused. She was able to raise it. And you avoided unnecessarily giving away $30,000. And it's not just the $30,000. It's what it could have earned the rest of your life, the true

Brian Minier:

opportunity cost. A lot of people don't realize the impact on that. Not only what you lose, but the growth potential. The lost opportunity.

Ed Beemiller:

Yeah, opportunity cost.

Ryan Fleming:

That's the true cost. And so these are things that we focus on quite a lot during all phases of life is college funding. And it's just been an awesome opportunity. opportunity to serve hundreds and hundreds of families trying to figure that out. And many of those people have turned into long-term comprehensive retirement planning clients. So that's a phenomenal opportunity there.

Brian Minier:

Yeah, Ed, tell us a little bit about some of the focuses that you work with, the clients and the people that you work with every day. What are some of those areas of focus that you've been able to help those folks?

Ed Beemiller:

I was 17 years as a commercial lender, middle market commercial lending, then went to work for one of my clients as their CFO. So I had relationships with business owners, small, mid-sized business owners for a great part of my career. And so kind of a niche within our group. is working with business owners. And there's a lot of intricacies with working with business owners. A lot of times these small business owners, you know, cash is king. They do not want to, they need that cash. Maybe they can't get traditional financing sources from a bank because they're not big enough. They don't show the profits because what are they doing? Well, their accountant is telling them to manage that bottom line. Then they don't show enough to be able to borrow funds. So there's also the tax side of it, right? Because the CPA is trying to minimize that taxable liability and what they have to pay in those taxes. So beyond traditional planning, what we kind of in the industry call advanced markets, there's specific plans, especially for the small business owners that don't have a lot of employees that allow them to save and to actually realize tax benefits well above normal IRA guidelines. And those are plans that we talk with our business clients a lot about, 412E3 plans, SEP accounts, cash balance plans. These are plans that they could put in $60,000, $70,000, $80,000. 412E3 plan, I have a small business client that is putting $450,000 a year pre-tax so that that's basically that that comes right off of his you know AGI and lowers his taxes so that there's a lot of specific things to business owners that they could take advantage of that I guarantee you they have no idea you know

Ryan Fleming:

well when they find out they become very focused on

Ed Beemiller:

right and it goes back to you know what we talked about in our initial podcast is you know what do we feel is what's the why of what we're doing well what is it financial What? Literacy. Evangelical literacy, that's right. You know, that's true. That's true. And so, you know, part of our job is, a big part, is to educate and inform, you know, our clients. So that business side, you know, for any small business owners out there, there are a lot of different options and you just, you know, need to get in front of people that understand that business side of things and can offer, you know, real options to help with both building wealth and tax planning at the same time. But I

Brian Minier:

like how when you do work with your business owners, it's not just, here's the one thing that we do. Like you said, you just mentioned a couple different things. And some of those plans would work great for lowering taxes in the year that they're filing their returns, but that plan may not give them capital that they need. And I think there's other plans that you help business owners with that.

Ed Beemiller:

At the end of the day, I always say this. a business owner is an individual so at the end of the day we're doing individual financing financial planning for someone that just happens to own a business so that opens up realm of other potential strategies that can help and some may be tax advantage but then we also got to look at long term what's in the best and it's really it's like a pie right there's pieces of the pie so you know trying to put into place what is the best long term

Ryan Fleming:

and you talk about this all the time i mean one of the biggest risks to a business owner is lack of capital right so Maybe you can speak to a little bit more about what do you do or what are some strategies that you can help our business owners with to create access to capital to be nimble?

Ed Beemiller:

Yeah. One of our strategies that I would probably say of our clients that use this strategy, 70% to 80% had never heard of it. And it's an actual strategy that's been around for not a decade now. Not several decades, but a century plus. And Ryan, you referred to this one in your term. What's the acronym you use on this one?

Ryan Fleming:

I don't know.

Ed Beemiller:

Well, I think it's a LERP,

Ryan Fleming:

right? Oh, a LERP, yeah. LERP. For those people that are out there that don't understand all this LERP or acronym jargon in our world, LERP stands for Life Insurance Retirement Plan. And that's a broad acronym, but

Ed Beemiller:

yeah, there's certain types, and we'll talk about those. Really, with that, you know, so we're able to use, you know, and this has some tax advantages, it has liquidity advantages, and what I like to say that, you know, this one specific strategy that we use that really does help with the business owners who need access to capital, but they're holding on to their own cash, and they can't get traditional financing. So we basically have a strategy that enables them to build wealth that is liquid, that's accessible, grows tax-free, similar to a Roth, and can be used for business owners. Real estate professionals love this, once again, building that access to capital, but so does an individual.

Ryan Fleming:

Darrell Bock

Ed Beemiller:

Life has many expenses, and we like to say we have a lot of life happens events. What that means is you're going along, you've got a plan, you've got a process, and then all of a sudden your furnace breaks down and there's a $6,000, $7,000 bill. An engine goes out in your car. It's important to have that, which we all really believe in, that part of life. Your plan should have that liquidity and accessibility. And you're in control, not a third-party bank or finance company, because they can always say no. And that's important, once again, dealing with business owners, that specific strategy. But once again, it's a piece of what we do. It's a piece of that overall plan. It could be used great for business owners, real estate professionals, but even better, and we can all basically raise our hands here, we all utilize this strategy ourselves.

Ryan Fleming:

Yeah, we'll do it justice. We'll actually do an episode on some of this LERP stuff that we talked about for sure. But yeah, the liquidity use and control is amazing. your focus of ours. People need it to access it for college funding, financing cars, maybe funding the real estate deals and putting money into

Ed Beemiller:

the business. Kind of another kind of expertise that we have, and Brian, you're kind of leading the charge on this, is for people that, you know, which we all get there, right? Because, you know, we all turn a certain age and, you know, one of the benefits we still have, you know, from the government is Social Security. So I know that you spend a lot of time in dealing in that senior and more of a senior marketplace. So tell us a little bit

Brian Minier:

more about that. For people that are getting ready to retire or in retirement, They're trying to figure out, well, when should I take it? You mean it's not going away? That may be another episode as well. I have some thoughts on that. I do not think it's going away. I think it will change. But when you look at Social Security, what I find is the number one way people try to figure out how do I take my social security? Is this break even? Well, if I live to a certain age and I wait to take it at a certain age, then I know if I live a certain amount of years, it'll offset the years that I didn't take the benefit. And I just don't think that's the best way to take it because there's so many variables. If you're married, did your spouse work? If your spouse didn't work, there's spousal benefits, there's survivor benefits. What if you and your spouse have an age gap? There's some interesting rule changes that happened back in January this year with the government pension offset and the windfall elimination provision. I mean, there's just all of these elements that people are just not... aware of and what does that look like so one of the areas for that particular phase and that focus is how do you use social security for income planning versus looking at social security in a way that you're going to try to optimize or gain what you get from the social security administration and I think if you look at it from a standpoint of it's an income it's a part of your income plan and if you look at it and maximize it that way what I have found is working with people, it makes those retirement distribution plans that much better.

Ryan Fleming:

Maybe you can speak to this. A lot of people will tell me when it comes to the topic of Social Security, they honestly think it's not going to be there. Oh, we're not counting on that in our plan. And there's a lot of jargon out there saying that in the next few years or so that the trust fund is going to exhaust itself. It's going to go bankrupt. But that doesn't mean that Social Security in total is going to be gone. Can you maybe

Brian Minier:

speak to that? Yeah, that's a really good point, Ryan. So when you think of how Social Security is funded, it's through our FICA taxes. We have to pay into those when we're working. And it does phase out at a certain limit, but that income or those taxes is not going away. The issue is there's not enough FICA taxes that people are paying into. There's just not enough people working to support everybody taking a Social Security benefit. So to make up what else is needed comes from the Social Security Trust Fund. So if no changes are going to be made, what's going to happen is in 2033 or 2034, whatever year it is, that trust fund will be exhausted, which means the only monies that are coming in are through the FICA taxes, which will represent about 77 cents or so for each dollar that is

Ryan Fleming:

owed. So that could mean that Social Security today might get depleted a little bit. Maybe you get a little bit less, but it's

Brian Minier:

not going to totally go away. No, and I think for the generation that's getting ready to collect their benefits now, I don't think there's going to be any changes. That's my personal opinion from... articles, things that I have read, and people that I trust in the industry, and just different videos and things that I've studied. What are the potential changes that you

Ryan Fleming:

think that could happen?

Brian Minier:

I think there'll be a delay in benefits. There could be a tax change. There could be an impact in cost of living adjustments. And

Ed Beemiller:

we're already seeing the delay in benefits here over the last decade. And it's

Ryan Fleming:

happened before, and it'll happen again. It's happened in pension plans, like state teachers. You have to work five

Ed Beemiller:

extra years. Additional years to qualify for that same benefit.

Ryan Fleming:

And then you get less overall percentage of your top five versus your top three right yeah

Brian Minier:

so and there's just those all those variables that people just don't consider and that is an area that we we help people with we help them focus on

Ryan Fleming:

absolutely absolutely well another major area that is is very prime um it's it's definitely a very relevant topic is this idea of taxes going up in the future you know the old should you pay taxes on the seed or the harvest and we're gonna we're gonna really really dive into this in some later episodes. But another thing that we focus on at Keystone is this idea of tax-free planning withdrawals at the end. You know, is there a way to organize your affairs to where you are at or as close to a 0% withdrawal rate in retirement? Yeah. Okay. Are

Brian Minier:

taxes going to go down anytime soon? I mean, I would bet my left arm not. Wow. What do you think, Ed? Are taxes going down in the future?

Ed Beemiller:

Well, I think it's a topic of discussion we have with every single client that we meet with. Now, I think the temperament and attitude has changed a little bit, obviously, with the Republicans and Mr. Trump controlling the House, who's always favored a little more positive taxation, especially for that upper middle and wealthy class. Yeah. The reality of it is every single person we listen to or hear ourselves at some point with a $37 trillion in growing deficit, there's two ways to cure that deficit. You either decrease spending or increase income. Well, income is taxes. So, yeah, the probability, whether it happens in the next several years or five, ten years, you know, Taxes are going to have to go up.

Ryan Fleming:

There's a good chance that Trump extends the Trump tax cuts. There was a really positive momentum with that. Now it's been a little bit of a pause, but there's still a lot of... Experts out there, they're saying there's a good chance that's going to get extended. And it's not just the debt, right? But if they do get extended, that's going to add about another almost $5 trillion to our national debt. Our national debt is going to grow at $2 trillion per year for the next decade, not including the potential Trump tax extensions. But it's not just the debt. It's also the interest on the debt. It's also Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

Ed Beemiller:

Have interest rates gone up or down here in the last couple of years? So what does that mean for the debt?

Ryan Fleming:

We have $200 trillion unfunded obligations between Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. So your statement about bringing in more revenue, the tax train's coming. So one of the things we focus on are what are strategies, what are places that we can park our clients' money so that at the end, if you're pulling money out of Roth IRAs, Roth 401ks, I mean, Shucks, if these extensions happen Roth conversions are just unprecedented. Life insurance, retirement plans, all of these vehicles have tax-free implications at the end. And if you've got four, five, six different streams of income that don't show up on the IRS's radar, then, you know, zero times, if taxes double, zero times two is still zero. So again, we will get into some of these. There's six or seven tax-free strategies out there to help people. I think it's the right message at the right time in history. But we do focus quite a lot on that. And a lot of people are very anxious to learn about this because they want to pay their fair share, but they don't really fully understand the

Brian Minier:

scope of what's coming down the line. Well, and we talk to people, here's why we're in the situation that we're in. People get a job they invest in a 401k because you get a match, right? So they're like, great, I'm going to invest, I'm going to get a match. Well, with so many people that we work with, the only option that they had at the time was a pre-tax 401k. And when we were all in college, what were we taught? You will eventually retire, you will have all your debt paid, and you will be in a lower tax bracket, which means you're going to pay lower taxes. Without any conversation of, hey, those tax brackets may change, By the time that you retire.

Ed Beemiller:

And you're going to spend 50% of your pre-retirement spending in retirement. Which we know is not true. I

Brian Minier:

always ask this question at my classes. I put this bullet point up and say, you're going to be at 80% to 100% of your pre-retirement income in retirement. And people are like, kind of look at me. And then some get it. And I'm like, because what do you have in retirement that you don't have while you're working? You've got a little bit of time on your hands, right? Yeah, exactly. That's right. What does that time usually equate to?

Ryan Fleming:

Yeah.

Ed Beemiller:

Travel, visiting, taking vacations, visiting family. That's

Ryan Fleming:

right. Somebody told me this story one time to kind of get the point across. They were saying, okay, let's say you needed $10,000 and I was willing to lend it to you. And I'm going to cut you a check for $10,000. And I always ask the client, what would be two questions you'd ask me when I give you this check? And they always say, well, how much interest are you going to charge me? And how long do I have to pay you back? And I would say, those are fantastic questions. Thank you for asking. I like you. You're my friend. I don't need the money right now. And I probably will need the money in about 15 to 20 years. And at that time, what I'll do is I'll sit down at my table in 15, 20 years, and then I'll just figure out how much interest I want to charge you. Would you like to cash my check? And they laugh, and they're like... Heck no, right? No. And I'm saying, well... I know we're laughing, but that is the exact relationship. That's the exact partnership that you're in when you put your money into a pre-tax retirement plan like a 401k. The government's not saying that you, you know, they're just letting you postpone it, right? You're in a big partnership with Uncle Sam, and they're like, well, I don't like that, right? And so that opens up a little bit of a conversation.

Ed Beemiller:

Once again, any financial planner and what we work on is trying to mitigate or eliminate risk, right? And, you know, one of the other very significant risks that we try to address with each of our clients, especially as they're getting closer to, you know, mid-age and beyond, and Brian, I know you talk a lot about this, so what is that risk there as you get close to retirement? What happens to people when they get old?

Brian Minier:

Maybe running out of money? Is that what you're getting at?

Ed Beemiller:

Well, running out of money, that's the longevity risk. Oh, you're talking

Brian Minier:

about health.

Ed Beemiller:

Yeah, what happens if the health diminishes?

Brian Minier:

Maybe potential long-term care.

Ed Beemiller:

Yep, yep. Tell us a little bit more about that. This is an

Brian Minier:

area where it's unexpected, and I would bet $99 out of 100 people, maybe that's pretty close to that. Do not plan for long-term care because it's not something that you want to think about. And then you hear people say things like, well, if I'm not in a right state of mind, just roll me out into the woods somewhere and let me walk off a cliff. And leave me. That's never going to happen. And so the thing about long-term care is, of course, there's different strategies and different products that we can offer and help. But the number one thing that I would say is you just have to have a plan. What would happen to you? What would happen to your loved ones, your spouse, your kids? if you had to go into a facility because you couldn't take care of yourself? What would that mean for you financially? And what would that mean for even the level of care and who would deliver that care

Ryan Fleming:

to you? 100%. I mean, I think the statistics are there's a 70% chance one of the existing living spouses is going to experience a long-term care event. I had this happen recently with my grandmother who, she passed away recently, but was in an assisted living, then a little bit more care needed after that. It's an insidious risk that can have devastating impacts on people's estates and lifelong savings habits. And this amazing lifestyle that the spouse thought that they were going to live, their spouse gets sick, they drain their account, and they're left with this subsistence of living. And it's a real thing. It's not fun to talk about. But again, relative to this idea of what do we focus on at Keystone, we talk about this quite a

Brian Minier:

lot.

Ryan Fleming:

Yeah. You've

Brian Minier:

got to have a plan for it. And not only do you have to have a plan for it, you need to understand what the ramifications are. Yeah. If you spend on your assets, if you have Medicaid that comes in and helps you with that, what does that mean depending on what state you live in? What can they do with your house and put a lien on it? There's just things that you need to be aware

Ed Beemiller:

of. Most people, once they hit 65, well, I have Medicare. Well, guess what? Medicare does not cover what? Long-term care. Long-term care. Yeah. I have a personal experience with my mother-in-law being in independent living and then going into assisted care. And full assisted care can cost anywhere from $9,000, $10,000 a month.

Ryan Fleming:

Yeah. It's crazy.

Ed Beemiller:

And most of that is private pay. So effectively what the plan for most people is, self-insure.

Brian Minier:

That's right.

Ed Beemiller:

But this is a whole other podcast, honestly, when we're dealing with the long-term care. But once again, it just kind of goes back to what do we focus

Brian Minier:

on? Yeah.

Ed Beemiller:

you know, what types of things does our company focus in working with our individual clients? And it's important that we, going back, ask the appropriate questions of, well, how are they planning for this? Or what is their plan? Yeah.

Brian Minier:

I have a client that I've been working with, a married couple, been working with them for a number of years now. And we talked about long-term care. Well, guess what? We didn't provide or sell any long-term care products, but they have a plan for it. And that plan, I think, is a good plan. And And it doesn't mean we have to implement, here's your long-term care coverage, but they have a plan. They know what they're going to do. And I think that's what we take a lot of pride in is creating those personalized services and doing that at different phases of each person's life. Agreed. So anything you want to add to this discussion as we get ready to wrap this up?

Ed Beemiller:

No, I think, you know, we really just try to touch upon each of the... areas that every individual will face and how we try to spend time understanding and listening and then developing a full holistic plan to help them.

Ryan Fleming:

Yeah, I would say tune back in for more information about individual strategies and things that we talked about. But if you guys are liking this, please share this information with your loved ones, your coworkers. We want to not only educate you, but we want to educate people that we don't even know yet. So we appreciate you guys. Appreciate you all tuning in. And look forward to talking to you guys on the next episode. Great words, guys. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you next time.

Brian Minier:

Take care.

Announcer:

Take care. Bye-bye.

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