SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Ask for a Skinny Podcast with a guest. I'm proud to present Chris Maduri. Chris, welcome to the show. Please tell us more about yourself. What is your story?

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Thank you for having me on. I am, I guess, uh most importantly, a child of God, father, husband, and uh my day-to-day job, I help people um plan for, uh, visualize, and uh get comfortable with retirement and financial planning.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Amazing. So a lot of people, when uh they get aware that they're already in their midlife, uh start thinking about retirement, and yeah, they think about all the decisions they have taken in the past and were not the best one, and they think about what is their current situation, and they're not too pleased about it. So, how would you go about it? How would you put a let's say optimistic spin on uh a fear of retirement uh being uh part of our midlife crisis?

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Um, yeah, that's definitely a uh big topic when it comes to retirement and you know the timing of the midlife crisis. And we always feel like we're underprepared for everything, right? No matter what it is um that we're doing. And it's just life to me is just a series of choices, and our choices kind of bring on other choices. So it's never too late, it's never too early, but uh for folks in their midlife, they shouldn't feel like they're behind. You know, it's a good time to start. And if your daily choices are not in line with uh you know retirement planning or someday stopping working, then it's just time to think about it and to get comfortable with it and you know, kind of put the plan together, right? I think it all starts with the plan. That to me is the uh the way to go.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Amazing. So what would you say to an average American earning 80,000 a year? Where should they start thinking about retirement? What what what would what should be their um first thought or the first step to take? Should they go for a 401k? Should they go for IRA account? What what what is the what is the direction that they should start exploring in? Let's go out like this.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah, it's hard to give general advice, um, but for somebody making that money, um the next question out of my mouth would be how much are you spending? Because it's not what you make, it's what you keep, right? So if all of that money is accounted for, then um we have to find ways to um first visualize and understand what we want in retirement. I think that is absolutely critical. And then go from there to you know retirement to me is about income and it's about risk mitigation. So where we're going to allocate assets are going to be consistent with providing income. Right. So um, you know, here we I do a lot with annuities and um, you know, looking at how much guaranteed income someone has for retirement. My feeling is that guaranteed expenses need to have guaranteed income tied to them for in order for somebody to be comfortable with it. Um, a lot of times I think people are looking at it as this accumulation of assets, and we never feel like we have enough, right? So it's how much money are you going to spend in retirement, right? Because once you have enough money coming in to pay your bills, theoretically you could retire, right? The more of a cushion there is, um, the easier it's going to be. Um, you know, and then it comes down to like risk mitigation. So are you taking care of yourself, right? Do you have longevity in your family? Um, how long that retirement's going to last is gonna determine whether we have enough money, right? If you're gonna pass away three months after you retire, probably don't need a real big plan for that. But you know, we try to keep it so that it's um, yeah, I think nowadays you kind of have to look at it as 25, 30 years of a potential retirement. And if we're under prepared for that, then maybe it means we're gonna work a little bit longer. Maybe it means that instead of turning it on and turning it off, maybe we're doing doing something part-time, right? Or finding some other ways to keep income coming in. Um, but it's once you start spending down those assets, uh, the more of a plan that you have for it and the more guarantees, I think the better off you're gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Okay. I would like to address some, let's say, societal induced um principles, and I don't believe they're true anymore, but I would like to have your opinion on it because you said that we have to visualize what we want. And in the 80s, it used to be like you you if you have a million dollars on your bank account, and if they give you 12% interest, you're set for life. That was the the the the story in the 80s that they told. Uh now you can you probably need about four million to do that, uh but not to have uh bigger income because uh in 80s you in the 80s you would have 120,000, but now for the 120,000 you need four million probably uh and uh if we multiply that by four so that uh uh the the purchase power per unity of 120,000 in in the 80s, it would probably be we would need like in a range of 16 million right now. So what what what's what's your um um so how do you see this? What's you know, like a million-dollar man, a million-dollar question, all this stuff is still a million dollar, and and and the inflation inflation is so far going on uh beyond we what we have ever imagined, uh even 20 years ago. So what is the uh so if we want to keep our standards as we have it now, for example, we if we spend 60,000 a year on an 80,000 income, uh how much money uh should we have saved or how much should we have invested in uh you you you talk about annuities and so that the probably bonds and similar papers? Well, what's what's your plan? So an average American right now, how much assets should they have? Um we're talking minimum risk, not uh property and leverage property and stuff like that, but minimum risk non-leverage, how much money should we should we save for um let's say uh mediocre retirement?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yeah, I uh again, it's tough to put an actual dollar amount on it, and there's different approaches that you can take to spending in retirement. Um, if you were gonna go that route of 60-40 portfolio, you know, and and there's a lot of debate to your point. Like, is it 4%? Is it 3%? Is it 5%? Like how much can we spend out? Um, you first need to know how much you're gonna plan to spend, right? Because if someone's gonna spend $50,000 a year in retirement, or someone's gonna spend $150,000, we're gonna come away with two very different numbers, right? So um from a percentage of assets standpoint, uh now I think a lot of people are looking at three to four percent um as their safe withdrawal rate. Um that's that's gonna create some big numbers, right? It went to your point, if you're looking at that over the span of 25 or 30 years, and then you want to factor in maybe somebody has a long-term care event, something like that, which really takes a big hit on the portfolio. Um, I think the income streams, especially now, with interest rates being so high and converting a portion of that into guaranteed income is going to take a lot of that pain away, right? Because, you know, right now, let's say a 65-year-old, if they had looking for immediate income, you can buy an annuity and get a 7%, 8% distribution rate that's guaranteed for the rest of your life, right? So you tack that on top of Social Security. Maybe they have a pension. I know those are kind of going away, but still have you know, teachers, government workers, they have there's still a lot of pensions that are out there. Um and you're really kind of added up to create that income stream, right? So ideally, you would have income on one side, saving and accumulating assets and keeping those assets invested is important. Um social security does have cost of living increases, annuities can, but um, it gets actually very costly. So, you know, ideally, if you're kind of have that equity side um that's meant to combat inflation, um that money, if it's sitting there and it can grow and it can weather the storms, then you kind of use that for accumulation protection. And then um, you know, you have these uh silos of income that are being used to pay the bills. Because if that income's coming in the door, then it's not really similar to what it was when you were working, right? You had a paycheck, you had a budget, and you had the money coming in and those offsets. So, again, going back to that guaranteed income for guaranteed expenses, um, that's gonna take a lot of the pressure off and is gonna provide a lot of peace of mind for folks. Um, you know, uh when it comes to doing the income planning with annuities, the longer you give it to cook, the better off it's gonna be, right? So um, you know, that same 8% payout, if the person was 55 years old and then waited to 65 to start, that's gonna be looking more like a 15-16% payout. So a much smaller percentage of your assets have to be committed towards it. And the more tactical we can get as to what are these assets supposed to be doing for us, right? This uh this annuity is meant to provide income. This brokerage account is really not meant to be tapped into unless it's for a purchase that's not, you know, not using it to pay your electric bill, right? Maybe you're using that to go on a cruise, or maybe you want to contribute to your grandkids 529 or something like that. And if those assets can sit there, um, like I say, weather the storm, that's gonna be um it's gonna take a lot more pressure off the rest of the portfolio. And that's what we're you know kind of looking to do.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Okay, so where should our listeners start? Who should they consult first? Where do you come into play?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Um, yeah, so I do uh you know financial and retirement planning. I focus on more on the annuities life and long-term care side. Um, I partner with folks that do deal more with like the money management, asset management side. Um my personal feeling is that the more specialized you can get, right? Um, rather than being jack of all trades, master of none, I'm a big fan of partnerships so that the people there are very specific and focused on what their um their individual goals are. So a good financial planner is a good place to start. Um you know, sitting down with someone, getting clear about what you want in retirement, how much money you need in retirement. Um, and we're dealing a lot with the financial side. There's a whole nother piece of this is that psychological and emotional side of retirement. Um, you know, so uh I think the first conversation needs to be with the spouse, right? If you have a if you if you're married, to make sure that we're on the same page as to what we want in retirement. And then um, you know, financial planner. Uh depending on how large your estate is and what your goals are, maybe estate planners come in, you know, a lawyer for someone like that. But if you're talking about the individual that's concerned about will I have enough money for retirement, a good financial planner is a good place to start.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

Well, why should we do that? Is is that is there uh like an end time, like uh you should do it by the year that you're 50 years old, or is there anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Um there's I think the sooner the better is always uh the case, right? This way, um even if you're not planning necessarily just for the retirement, but just to keep your money invested. So if some people want to invest their own money, that's great. You know, some people want to uh use a third party for that. I would say by the time you're you know 40 or 50, you probably want to have a at least an interaction with a financial planner just uh for planning purposes, right? Just to make sure that you're um on target or at least have things going in the right direction.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Amazing. So can you tell us uh uh a bit more about of course, not the details, but about your portfolio? How did how did you decide what to do uh in general terms, of course? We don't want any uh personal data or something like that, but um what was your um motivation and how how did you did you approach it?

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Uh from my own individual investing, yes. Um, yeah, so that I'm a big uh I am more conservative in nature and a big fan of balance, right? So I am 47 couple weeks, gonna be 48 years old. And you know, this is the time where I'm starting to shift to really start thinking about retirement and making sure that some of the dollars I have four kids, they're gonna be going to college starting in two years, right? So making sure that we have money saved for their college, making sure that we have protection in place um in case you know the unthinkable happens and either my wife or I, you know, were to pass away. Um so want to make sure that we have the balance there. Um using more you know, equities for growth at this point. We don't we are in a position where we're not the conservative stuff, um, is really specific to our retirement. So we'll use a deferred income annuity, for example, and kind of throw money into that, which is going to kick off an income stream whenever we retire. That we would use for kind of where a lot of people might use the bond portion of their portfolio, um, and then equities for for growth. I'm not personally like a cyber crypto type guy, uh, although a lot of people have done very well with it. Um, to me, it's just something that I don't, you know, understand and not a place for me to put money. But um, you know, for others, I think that's a part of their portfolio. Um, and you know, those more aggressive pieces, when you're younger, you know, you could take those big swings, right? It's more as I get closer and closer to retirement, I want to make sure that um there's guarantees in place. I'm not gonna pull the money under a mattress or something like that, right? Because I do need the equities for growth. But um, what I refer to as like the retirement risk zone, five years prior to retirement and the first five years of retirement, that money that I'm going to spend, I want to make sure that it's not going to be subject to some big, you know, market loss, right? If you've uh heard the term sequence of return risk, that is a risk that is really specific to retirement because there's no sequence of return risk when you're 30 years old, because you know the markets go down and the markets are going to recover. Your money, you're not going to need the money, right, at that time. So where sequence of return risk comes in is that let's say you start withdrawing that money and you have a, you know, a 2008 happens, right? Now 40% of your portfolio is gone and you started taking money out of it. That money can't grow back because you've already spent it, right? So those are the types of things where we go, all right, we need to protect those assets. And if those assets are protected, then you have a little bit more flexibility on the other, right? You can still be invested in equities because you're not touching that money right now, right? So we want to get specific and say these assets are doing X, these assets are doing Y, these assets are doing Z. Right. And the more specific we get, the greater the peace of mind that we can have. So over the next 15 years, you know, we're probably going to be kicking more money into that deferred income annuity so that our income stream, when we turn it on, is ready to go, we know exactly how much money we have to spend in retirement, and we can be really comfortable spending in retirement. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Uh what about the um how how long should we invest for? For example, you have 20 years bond from the US. Is that something we should consider at 50 years old or not?

SPEAKER_01 18:38

An individual bond. It depends on what you're you're looking to do with it and what your goals are for it. You know, for um for some people, they'll take that bond and they'll use the interest and you know, just kind of pull that off as income, you know, where you're holding a specific bond. Um you have those that are gonna be a little bit um if you're using a US government bond, you know, lower risk versus um, you know, whether it'd be a corporate bond, you know, where you have the ratings and stuff like that. Um, you have bond funds as well, right? And you have money managers that are using those. Um, so it it really depends on the individual's goals. Um, but yeah, uh a 20-year or a treasury bond is thought to be uh you know a pretty low-risk investment. So yeah, and and it depends on the again, on the individual and and you know, from a tax standpoint, what their taxes are gonna look like in retirement as well, uh we want to consider those.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Okay. So to wrap things up, there's no better way to do it, like uh, and no better time than uh now. It would be better if we would start 10 years ago. But if we are experiencing midlife crisis and a part of it is we don't know how we're gonna retire, we just uh talk to the an expert. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Yeah, get help, right? I think with anything in life, when you're going through something and you have concerns, then seek out somebody that is trustworthy, knowledgeable, and can help point you on the right path from finances for whatever it is that you're going through, you know, and just know that you you can't undo the past, right? The only moment that really matters is the present, right? And making sure that we're making choices in the present that are going to give us the future that we want.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Chris, thank you for all these insights. Uh, before I let you go, please tell us uh where can our listeners get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah. Um, so the best way is through my website, vibrantretirement.com. Um, you know, you'll have all of my contact information on there, um, all of my social media and everything like that. Feel free to message me on um on there as well. Um yeah, you know, phone number, whatever it is. Uh feel free to reach out.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Thank you, Chris. Thank you again for being my guest tonight.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Thank you so much, Peter. I appreciate the time.