In this insightful episode of Retire South Shore Radio, hosts Mark Rowlette , and Damon La Tanzi take a deep dive into the unique financial challenges that women face, particularly when it comes to retirement planning and tax strategies. With a special focus on the experiences of women in the financial services industry, the hosts provide valuable insights and practical advice aimed at empowering women to take control of their financial futures.
Segment 1. Introduction:
Segment 2. Statistics and Challenges:
Segment 3. Asking Key Questions:
Segment 4. Encouragement to Take Action:
Segment 5. Retirement Planning as a Marathon:
Segment 6. Common Financial Concerns:
Segment 7. Legal Documentation:
Segment 8. Active Financial Participation:
Segment 9. Industry Attention:
Segment 10. Increasing Savings and Financial Planning Strategies:
Segment 11. Tax Strategy and Healthcare Planning:
Segment 12. Conclusion:
Jordan Rich [00:00:03]:
Welcome. This is the retire South Shore radio podcast produced by South Shore Retirement Services, inviting you to get started on the path toward your dream retirement today. Here's the founder and president of South Shore Retirement Services, Mark Roulette.
Mark Rowlette [00:00:19]:
Every week we talk about different things that we think are relevant to the people that we serve and are relevant to a lot of our listeners. And sometimes they're, you know, tax strategies, sometimes they're asset options, investment strategies. Think, you know, today's theme, which is a little odd and skewed for us, is kind of relevant to everybody that we serve. But the focus of today's show is kind of some of the challenges that some of the women that we work with as clients kind of face as they go get ready for their retirement or go into their retirement. And I think the reason I say it's kind of odd and weird is that Erica is obviously one of the fantastic financial advisors here in the office. And when we were talking about doing the show, obviously we would want Erica to be on the show. And she was on the show for WBZ an hour ago. And being a mom, being a single mom with two children, sometimes things come up. So Erica got called away. Nothing wrong with the kids at all. I think it was just somebody was meant to pick up somebody.
Damon La Tanzi [00:01:14]:
Life happens, right?
Mark Rowlette [00:01:15]:
Sporting events. She's like, guys, I gotta go. So we are going to hold the torch for.
Damon La Tanzi [00:01:19]:
Try to hold the torch,
Mark Rowlette [00:01:20]:
For our colleague Erica today and talk about some of the challenges. Not so much challenges, but some of the things that we kind of noticed from working with. We have a large female client base through the hospitals in town and just the various industries around. So last week, we talked a lot about some of the things that people should be doing to be proactive in their tax strategy in and around, not just waiting until you're about to file your taxes and then go backwards and see what you can fix, it's proactively looking forward at what you could be doing to not be in this kind of 11th hour planning that we see a lot of people dealing with that challenge. But I think for a lot of the folks that we are helping and working with on an ongoing basis, these challenges that we're going to talk about today or things that people maybe want to try and overcome are not necessarily gender relevant. I mean, they don't see a gender. Taxes will happen to everyone. Right, right.
Mark Rowlette [00:02:24]:
Asset allocation, the same thing. So, you know, if you haven't had a chance to listen to that show, or if you haven't had a chance to come down and see one of our live events. Please just go to our website, retiresouthshore.com. or you can call the office. We have a dedicated line for Wrko. It's 781-579-8224 that's 781-579-8224 and you could set up a 15 minutes call with one of the advisors here to answer any questions that you have, or just come down into the office and sit down. No cost, no obligation to sit and kind of review what you've currently done to see if there's something you can do better. Because it doesn't matter whether you're a man or a woman. Nobody wants to worry about running out of money in retirement. But so many people do.
Damon La Tanzi [00:03:03]:
Mark. And I think if we think about, we pick on our industry a lot on this show, and I think a lot of it is, I think all of it is warranted. But our industry historically, and the statistics bear this out, has done a very poor job connecting with women. It's been a very male dominated industry. And the irony is not lost on us that, hey, where there's two guys here in the studio talking about this. I remember back when I lived in New York City and I was dating my now wife, and she had a financial advisor at the time, and she would come back from the meetings with this guy, like, I don't know what his deal is. He, I feel like he's talking down to me. He never asked us questions about what we're trying to do or what's important to us.
Damon La Tanzi [00:03:40]:
It was sort of a very one sided, jargony type discussion, never getting into her goals and her fears and all of that. And it was, that was really the first time because I was brand new to the industry. I had no idea what the history of the, the business was from that standpoint. I remember her coming back from these meetings, like, scratching her head, like, I just don't get it. I mean, ultimately, she left that advisor, which I think is what happens a lot of the time. If you don't feel like someone understands what you're trying to do, if you don't feel like someone is connecting to you, if you're in a married couple and the advisor is only talking to the man, it's like our industry needs a wake up call, I think, around who's controlling more of the wealth, because the statistics say that more than half the wealth is controlled by women out there. Women have careers. They're working, they're earning their own money. They want to have their own financial plan. And if our industry isn't focused on that. Shame on all of us.
Mark Rowlette [00:04:30]:
Yeah. I mean, you and I talk about this all the time. I mean, the idea that the financial industry is that boys club is kind of old school.
Damon La Tanzi [00:04:39]:
It's gone.
Mark Rowlette [00:04:39]:
Right. Listen, I grew up in Ireland when it was, you know, dad was the one who worked. Mum stayed and raised us kids, and that was kind of the norm in the old country, as it were. But my brother in law, Seamus, has a medical practice, and my sister runs the medical practice from the business side of things, you know, so the idea of, you know, one person who happens to be the man is going to take care of all the money is just so archaic and old school. I have three daughters. You have a daughter as well, so I wouldn't want them growing up that way. So I think, you know, the idea of some of the challenges that people face, I think the reason that we say, you know, the theme of the show today is what women might face is just because there's a lot of life changing events for folks. And, you know, with the people that we serve, the age demographic that we work with, a lot of them have been in that role of, you know, I've been the one who's raised the kids.
Mark Rowlette [00:05:29]:
My spouse or husband has been the one who's worked and had, you know, the contributions into the whatnot. And, you know, sometimes they're picking up the reins for the first time at a certain stage in life. And I was looking at statistics 2d, that, you know, it says 80% of women switch their financial advisor the year that their husband passes away. And that's obviously a resounding theme to that. Why is that the case? Because maybe they weren't involved and they just wanted to kind of set their own building blocks and kind of build their own financial plan for themselves going forward. And sometimes, you know, a change is the best way to start that process. And again, if you're listening to the show and I, you're thinking, oh, gosh, you know, I just started looking at the financial side of things, and maybe I do want to have a change. Maybe you don't need a change, but maybe you just want to get that second opinion.
Mark Rowlette [00:06:17]:
That's a reason to come down to a live event, call the office and schedule a strategy call, come in and sit down and have a discovery meeting, just kind of see where you're at.
Damon La Tanzi [00:06:28]:
It's a great opportunity, I think, if nothing else, to meet us, to kick the proverbial tires and see me and Erica and Mark, you know, talking and get a chance to chat with us and meet us. And we understand when people coming into a financial office, there's anxiety. There's apprehension like, oh, what's going to happen? And we'll talk about that throughout the show, what our process is. But the live events, I think, are a very friendly way to, of course, get good information, but also to meet and connect with us a little bit. Now, if you're a man and you're out there listening, I think this is important. You've got daughters, you've got sisters, you've got wives. It's really a show for everybody. But there are a unique challenges that women face, and we want to get into those.
Damon La Tanzi [00:07:06]:
Mark, I think one of the biggest ones is the gender pay gap. Now, there's been a lot of progress, but women are still paid less than men. On average, women are earning just a little more than 80% of what men earned, and that's only a 2% change from 2002. So I guess you could say progress has been made, but it's really not enough progress. And what does that mean? Well, if you're earning less money over your career, and there's myriad reasons for that, you're maybe not able to save as much as you would have been if you'd earned more. And there are things you can do about that. Once maybe the kids are grown up or you get back in the swing of your career, you can save more. Make sure you're making maximum retirement contributions.
Damon La Tanzi [00:07:46]:
If you're old enough to do a catch up contribution, make sure you're doing that. It may be that your saving rate is more backloaded versus spread out evenly over your career, but it's not too late to save. You know, people when they're 55 and older, mark, those are like their peak earnings years. And we see a lot of our clients are able to save a huge amount of money in those sort of final working years relative to what they might have been able to do when the kids were younger. And there's expenses and bills coming up, so it's okay. I mean, it's not okay that women are earning less. That's not okay. But it's not too late to still sock that money away as much as you can later on in your working career.
Mark Rowlette [00:08:21]:
It's not across the board that women are making less. The stats are 40% of couples that the wife will make more money or out earn.
Damon La Tanzi [00:08:30]:
We see that for a lot of.
Mark Rowlette [00:08:31]:
Our clients have lots of clients that. But to your point, and it does go on either side, it's just in general, if you think about it, Damon, like, when you turn 55, Simone will probably be almost finished with college. Killian will be finished with college. So the savings that you'll have then, that extra savings power, is because college tuition should be gone.
Damon La Tanzi [00:08:49]:
I hope so.
Mark Rowlette [00:08:50]:
Well, yeah, it depends on if he takes the four year plan or the, the long.
Damon La Tanzi [00:08:54]:
No, four years. And done.
Mark Rowlette [00:08:56]:
I only say that because we know where he's going to college now, and it's. It's official. I mean, you. Yeah.
Damon La Tanzi [00:09:01]:
Right. He's going to Colby College, which is a pretty amazing. Yeah, it's a great school up in Maine, but it's also an expensive school. But.
Mark Rowlette [00:09:06]:
Oh, believe me, I know. Am I going to Miami? And going to schools are very expensive, too. Yeah. So, I mean, when they, when the kids get out of college, there's this opportunity to make additional, you know, savings, because you have this, I don't want to say disposable income, but you've had this huge expense. It's like paying a mortgage off. When the mortgage is gone, all of a sudden you have this extra money to do it. And maybe you want to start, you know, pushing that. That money into some sort of savings, because one of the biggest things, and I think it's the biggest challenge that women.
Mark Rowlette [00:09:34]:
It's not even a challenge. It's just the reality that they face is that longevity. Right. Women live longer than men, statistically, five to seven years. And there's a number of reasons for that, but the reality is they live longer than men. So a lot of the planning that we look at doing is it's not just, all right, well, we think we're going to live 20 years in retirement. I'm like, well, what if one of you lives 15 years and the other one lives 30 years? Right. Because that's a long time to leave one person, whether man or woman, but one person to kind of hold the reins and make sure that they can continue.
Mark Rowlette [00:10:04]:
And in most couples, that's the biggest concern. If something happens to me, I want to make sure my spouse is okay.
Damon La Tanzi [00:10:10]:
Right. So when we're running our models, you know, we might run the men out to age 90 and run the women out to age 95 in terms of life expectancy, or maybe 95 and 100. But the opportunity is, yeah, you get to live longer, and that's great, but your money has to stretch that much farther. So on our end, when we're doing our planning, we're typically not assuming that, you know, if it's a husband and wife that they're dying at, the same time, or even if it's just a single woman or divorced woman or widowed, we're going to run that life expectancy and stretch that longer and really try to stress test the model to make sure that, hey, if you live to 100, if you live longer than, if you live longer than the statistics say that your money will last that long. So when we're doing our planning, we're taking this longer life expectancy into account.
Mark Rowlette [00:10:48]:
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of things that people will look at. And again, I know that the show today is kind of leaning in towards things that women may be thinking about, but it does apply to men as well. And, you know, Erica, in the previous show that we were doing on BZ, she raised the point about people getting divorced late in their, I guess, life cycle of careers, right as they're getting close to retirement, a divorce could happen, and all of a sudden, you're left sitting with new money or money that maybe you weren't really on top of and somebody else, like your spouse, was taking care of the investments because she said that kind of was her when she went through her divorce, she wasn't really fully immersed in the financial industry at that stage. And going through a divorce and all of a sudden, sitting, having money, having to kind of re-navigate the whole retirement plan as a single person is complicated, overwhelming, and quite honestly, going through those sorts of situations, she said, was overwhelming in itself, had nothing to do with finances. A massive life changing event. And you have yourself here sitting down and you're like, all right, I gotta map this whole thing out. And that's really why people should have people in their corner every walk of life, right? When you're going through these challenging times, you know, we always say to people, if they lose a spouse, don't make huge decisions in the first year, but if you go through a divorce or if you go through something that you're looking at your money, sometimes you don't have the luxury to wait a year and say, all right, I'm going to push that out on the back burner because it could be the worst type of investment for you. It might have been something that was appropriate for a couple, but doesn't necessarily translate into a single person.
Damon La Tanzi [00:12:20]:
Right. And your expense structure is likely to change, and a lot of stuff is changing. Either you're giving money to the other spouse or you're getting money. That depends on, you know, sort of who was the primary earner. And we see examples of both of, but either way, your financial situation has completely changed. And it's not an insignificant rate of divorce, right. For americans age 50 and older, the divorce rate has doubled since the 1990s, and for folks over 65, it's tripled. I don't know what that says about, you know, the state of marriage, but putting that aside, those are big financial changes at a stage in your life when you're probably thinking that you're getting, you know, you've got more financial stability in store.
Damon La Tanzi [00:12:55]:
So if you've been through a divorce or you're going through a divorce, it's important, I think, to work with advisors who have some experience in that area, because there are unique challenges for both men and women around. Okay, I've got, you know, I've got this whole new world, right? What do I do? Where do I start?
Mark Rowlette [00:13:11]:
Yeah, I think how you would address your financial plan. It's. I would imagine it's next to impossible to build a financial plan and say, hey, listen, if 15 years from now, we get divorced, what should we do to prepare ourselves? People don't do that.
Damon La Tanzi [00:13:22]:
No, they don't do that.
Mark Rowlette [00:13:23]:
But there are things that you can be looking at, and, you know, we'll address it as we go through the show, because it's not that there's, like, these specific, finite things you should do. It's all a process, right? That retirement is a journey. It's not like a destination. And preparation is the most important part. And sometimes, like we say on the show all the time, life doesn't happen on a spreadsheet. Something comes up that you didn't expect, whether it's a divorce or you lose a spouse or you're reentering the workplace, and now you're starting to look at, how do I build my wealth? And should I be putting money in pre tax? Should I be putting money in after tax? And it's a. It's complicated, quite honestly. And that's really why we would encourage people to pick up the telephone and give us a call.
Mark Rowlette [00:14:01]:
781-579-8224 that's 781-579-8224 and set up a 15 minutes call. I mean, 15 minutes is probably the bare minimum you can attribute to probably the most important part of your life, transitioning from getting a paycheck to building your own paycheck. I think one of the things that people really should be looking at as a. As a, you know, not a concept, but a strategy that we feel that everyone should be looking at on an annual basis and continuously doing that is paying taxes as little as possible.
Jordan Rich [00:14:35]:
Right.
Mark Rowlette [00:14:35]:
Paying as little taxes as possible on highly taxable accounts. You don't necessarily have to use the money, but teeing yourself up for the future, especially in theme of today's show where women are living longer than men and a lot of the people that we serve tend to have the biggest amount of savings that they've put away in an account that they have not paid taxes on you. What do we mean by that? Four hundred one k, four hundred three B IRA. Right. Right. You push money into it during your working life and it's wonderful to be able to save money and get a nice tax deduction for it. But then when you start to take money out of it on the other end, you have to pay the piper.
Jordan Rich [00:15:08]:
Right.
Mark Rowlette [00:15:08]:
Uncle Sam wants its peace. So why would I bring that up in a show about women's challenges in retirement? Well, if women are going to live 5710 years longer than a spouse, and if you're looking through your retirement journey and let's say you've 20 years as a couple retires and you're taking Social Security, maybe you're getting a pension and you're taking, you know, 510, $15,000 a year out of your IRA. What about the rest of the money?
Mark Rowlette [00:15:36]:
Right. What about the rest of the IRA money? If you continue to accumulate that in a tax deferred vehicle and one person passes away, and in this case the husband passes away, wife is left with, number one, husband gone. Number two, less Social Security because the government takes it away. And number three, the only asset that they have to lean into is a pre tax asset that, guess what, now they're a single filer. And sometimes taxes can go from twelve to 22, sometimes they can go from 24 to 32. That's a huge launch because you're single filing status. So chipping away and getting ahead of that and taking additional money out of your iras every year, paying the taxes on it and then putting that money somewhere else. You don't have to spend the money. You just got rid of the taxes.
Damon La Tanzi [00:16:20]:
Right. And to your point, the key concept is really that because women live longer than men on average, of course there are exceptions. You're more subject to taxation risk, you're more subject to healthcare risk, which we're talking about. I mean, the longer we live, the more taxes we're going to pay that we think taxes are going up long term. So to your point, why not approach and tackle it now? I mean, it's marathon tomorrow, right? Retirement is a marathon. It's not a sprint. You can't come out of the gate sprinting full speed because you won't make it to mile 26. Right.
Damon La Tanzi [00:16:47]:
It's a long stretch retirement and having a strategy that reflects that long term, I think, is critical. We're not CPAs. We don't prepare taxes, but we build tax strategies. And no offense to the cpas and tax preparers out there, but they're generally looking at what happened last year. Right. Here's all my stuff. Here's my w two. What do I owe? We're looking at what can we do on a go forward basis this year, next year, and so on.
Damon La Tanzi [00:17:11]:
Right. That's the marathon of retirement is looking at what can we do every year? And whether it's a man or woman or whatever the situation is, how can we put them in a better position, tax wise or investment wise or plan wise over the long term?
Mark Rowlette [00:17:23]:
And why do we keep saying, you know, take additional money from an IRA or a pre tax account, whatever it might be, on an ongoing basis? Well, the reason being is that there's this amazing strategy that you can still use called a Roth conversion. Right. When I say take extra money out, let's say married, filing jointly, you have $20,000 in the same tax bracket that you're in before you go into the next tax bracket. Well, that's a real conversation starter for a lot of the people that we serve to say, why don't we take that $20,000 and recharacterize it to a Roth IRA, which is going to be completely tax free for the rest of your life, even the gains inside of it, and just get rid of the taxes. So recharacterizing money over from an IRA to a Roth IRA is something that everybody can do, man, woman and child. Right. There's no restrictions on age. There's no restrictions on income.
Mark Rowlette [00:18:14]:
There's no restrictions on working or not working. You can continuously chip away at doing this. And if you look at your financial plan and say, well, gosh, where am I going to be if something happens to my spouse? What tax bracket am I going to be in? And it's a higher tax bracket. Well, that's a reason to do it. Planning for the long term doesn't just mean, I mean, obviously, you should plan to make sure that you don't run out of money in retirement, and you should make sure no matter how long somebody lives, that there's always resources that you wouldn't be left having to massively change your lifestyle and the things that you want to do because somebody passed away. But you also have to think about it from the perspective of health.
Mark Rowlette [00:18:51]:
Right, I mean, I talked to someone the other day, and I was kind of challenging them on something, and I said, if I gave you a million dollars, would you take it? And they're like, absolutely, of course. And I said, well, if I gave you a million dollars, but the next day, your health deteriorated, and you were unhealthy for the rest of your life, would you take it? And they said, absolutely nothing. I said, so health is more important than money. But sometimes if you have a health failing as you get older in your years, you don't have a choice. Right. And that's something that can literally blow up someone's retirement. A healthcare need. That's long term.
Mark Rowlette [00:19:22]:
Right. Assisted living facility, nursing.
Damon La Tanzi [00:19:24]:
Nursing home.
Mark Rowlette [00:19:25]:
And as you know, my mom has. She's almost five years now with dementia. She's still at home. But there's resources in place to help my father not have to be the only person who's taking care of her, because that's a strain on him. But when we talk to a lot of the clients that we work with, it's, you know, statistically, if somebody gets sick, it tends to be husband first. My family's the opposite, but husband first, wife takes care of the husband. Husband passes away, wife gets sick. Nobody's there to.
Mark Rowlette [00:19:51]:
And besides, you know, I just want to make sure you know that the thing that we hear all the time, Damon, is if something happens to me, I want to make sure my spouse is okay. What's the second thing that we always hear? If I get sick, I don't want to be a burden on my kids. Right. That is a huge thing that we hear in the office. So a lot of the time, we start developing a financial plan for people, and this would be key for women is. All right, we talked about Roth conversions. You've headroom in your tax bracket each year. We should chip away and pay the taxes on your 401K with a little extra money coming out of the account just to get rid of the taxes.
Mark Rowlette [00:20:26]:
And we can put it into a Roth IRA. But what if we put it into a life insurance? And I know as soon as I say life insurance on the radio, people are like, what are you talking about? I don't need income.
Damon La Tanzi [00:20:35]:
I don't need that.
Mark Rowlette [00:20:36]:
But if you think about it, a life insurance policy is similar to a Roth IRA in that when you get to use it, the benefit is tax free.
Mark Rowlette [00:20:44]:
Right.
Mark Rowlette [00:20:44]:
Death benefits of life insurance are completely tax free. So if you are taking $20,000 a year from your IRA, because you have headroom in your tax bracket and paying the taxes, what are you going to do with that money? And I'm not saying put it all into life insurance, but you put 20,000 into a Roth. It's 2040, 60, 80, plus the growth, right? But if you put a ten into the Roth, ten into life insurance, maybe the ten in the life insurance buys a million dollars of insurance to your spouse that if something happens to him or her, you get a million bucks. But the industry has further evolved. They've added long term care benefits into a lot of these life insurance programs. And it's a really huge deal to a lot of the people that we serve because they don't know if they're going to get sick, but they do know that they're going to die. And long term care don't get rid of your long term care. Folks, if you're listening, it's a wonderful benefit if you have it.
Mark Rowlette [00:21:36]:
It's just that if you don't use it, you don't get the money back. Right? So with life insurance and long term care tied into it, meaning that if you get sick and you need care, the insurance company will start fronting you the death benefit on a monthly basis, tax free. To pay for those things allows you to buy the money for an incident that may or may not happen. But you're buying the money for an incident that you know is going to happen, meaning that you don't know you're going to get sick. You do know you're going to pass away. And if the stats are saying that women are living 5710 years longer than a man, those are the last, or, you know, the, what do we call them, the go slow years of when healthcare starts to go up, right? You look at retirement and you say, the first 5710 years are the stuff I want to do, the travel, the, you know, the things I couldn't have or didn't have time to do while I was working, the next seven to ten years is kind of goes into like the groove of, all right, we did all the traveling, now let's just chill out and hang out with our grandkids. And then the last seven to ten years, if we look at a 30 year life expectancy in retirement, tend to be the medical cost years, right? So having some sort of resource that if something like that were to happen, that you're covered, can be critically important to people that we serve and can give people a huge sense of confidence that there isn't something that can blow up. My retirement anymore more.
Damon La Tanzi [00:22:52]:
Right. So I think the point is there are insurance strategies, there's financial strategies, there's legal strategies around how you can protect yourself, how you can make sure if a long term care event does happen, that your plan doesn't get blown to bits. And I think a part of that is just simply making sure that your estate planning documents, your legal documents are up to date. I can't tell you how many people that we see, and maybe they did a will 20 years ago, but that's all they did. They don't have powers of attorney. They don't have a health care proxy. They don't have any trusts in place. And it's kind of like they know they should do something about it.
Damon La Tanzi [00:23:22]:
Life happens. We get busy with work and just, you know, living our lives, that it's an easy can to kick down the road. But once something happens, that's it. It's too late. You know, if your spouse passes away and you haven't named a backup power of attorney and you get sick, who's gonna pay your bills? Who's gonna be able to help you in those situations? Right. So it's all about, I mean, if there's nothing else that people take away from this show or any show, it's that you've got a plan. Right? Plan, plan. And then if bad stuff happens, which we hope it doesn't, but we know sometimes it does, that you'll be okay, your family will be okay, regardless of whether you're a mandeh or a woman.
Damon La Tanzi [00:23:54]:
Single, divorced, married, whatever it is, the plan can take into account all of these things that might happen in life, but only if you take that action, take that step.
Mark Rowlette [00:24:02]:
Yeah. Listen, I was born in the seventies, so I think, you know, to a certain degree, I try to look at things through our clients eyes, but my generation was that men and women were coming up in the same way.
Jordan Rich [00:24:14]:
Right?
Mark Rowlette [00:24:14]:
I rode horses when I was younger, and that's one competitive sport that men and women compete exactly the same in the same event. There's not a man's version of it, there's not a woman's. Like tennis and golf and all of those other things have that up that way. But the people that we serve were born in the forties and fifties a lot of the time, and that's just the reality of the forties and fifties. So, you know, today's show is themed towards things that our clients that are women should be addressing and we address with them. But I know it goes on both sides of it, but to your point, Damon, about updating your estate plan. As simple as looking at your beneficiaries. I've had lots of conversations with people, and I'm like, who's the beneficiary of this account? You look at it, and it's their late, late husband that had passed away 15 years ago.
Mark Rowlette [00:24:55]:
They just never changed it. So what happens when that happens is that you pass away. That person is no longer around, so it gets paid to the estate, and something that was completely probate avoidable is now getting probated, sucked into that. Yeah.
Damon La Tanzi [00:25:07]:
Yeah.
Mark Rowlette [00:25:07]:
So I think it's just a case of staying on top of all of these things.
Damon La Tanzi [00:25:10]:
Let's talk a little bit about taking an active role in your planning. Right. Taking an active role in your financial life. And this really applies, whether you're a man or woman, not just leaving it to the other person. Like this idea of, I'm not interested in the finances. I don't understand it. Maybe that's a shortcoming of our industry. Maybe we all need to do a better job making sure that everyone understands how important it is, understands these strategies.
Damon La Tanzi [00:25:34]:
But I think particularly women have felt this for a long time, which is the industry doesn't speak to them. It doesn't focus on them. It's ignored them. Shame on our industry. Because women control more of the wealth than men do. So it's kind of head scratching why we haven't gotten around to the point of really paying attention to who's holding, you know, the money strings.
Mark Rowlette [00:25:54]:
Yeah, I mean, to your point just there, Damon. Like, I'll. Let me rattle off a few statistics, because they're mind blowing. 80% of women switch their financial advisor within a year of their husband's debt. 73% of women report being unhappy with the financial services industry, and 87% say that they can't find an advisor with whom they can connect. What's that say about the financial industry, Damon? Right. I mean, it doesn't speak very well for us. Honestly, I think it speaks resoundingly well for South Shore retirement, because I know that I see more women as clients here in the office than I do as men.
Mark Rowlette [00:26:28]:
And that's not just because of these statistics that men don't live as long as women. I think it's the ability to connect on a level that people feel comfortable with about their money in general. But we are able to connect, I feel like, in a way, where people feel heard.
Mark Rowlette [00:26:44]:
Right, and man, woman doesn't matter. You want to feel heard. You don't want to feel spoken down to. You don't want to feel somebody's being condescending. You know, people come in here and Erica says this all the time. She's like, this is a no judgment zone. No matter what type of person you are, whether you're working retired man, woman, people don't want to feel intimidated because intimidated people don't do anything right. They just bury their heads in the sand because they don't want to have that conversation.
Mark Rowlette [00:27:07]:
And I have multiple clients that I have acquired from other advisors and had the same conversation with them. When we worked with our other advisor, every conversation was directed towards my husband. I was never included in the conversation, and it made me feel less then. And that's not a feeling that I would want my three daughters to have. And that's not a feeling that I want any of our clients to feel when they're sitting down in an office with me, you, elijah, or Erica.
Mark Rowlette [00:27:34]:
Right.
Mark Rowlette [00:27:34]:
I mean, we want to make sure that people feel confident in not only the work that they've done accumulating their money, but confident in the people that they are entrusting with their life savings. So they obviously don't have to worry about running out of money in retirement, but they feel not forgotten. They feel relevant, and they feel like they are a real person. And I'd like to think that we do a really good job of that here at Southshore.
Damon La Tanzi [00:27:59]:
Absolutely. So it might be as simple as making sure you know where all of your accounts are. It might be as simple as making sure that you know where those documents are. It may be, hey, next time there's a meeting, if you haven't gone before to meet with your financial person, go to that meeting, or, you know, take the action. If you have never talked to a financial person, give us a call. Reach out to somebody. I mean, from our standpoint, we know how we handle our process. Like you said, we're not in the business of judging people.
Damon La Tanzi [00:28:26]:
We're in the business of understanding what your goals are, what your needs are, what your challenges are. We want to meet you on your terms, where you're coming from. We have clients that are very financially sophisticated all the way down the line to clients that there's not their thing. They don't want to know. Like, listen, guys, we trust you. We, you know, do what you're going to do and just keep me updated. But they really don't want to get into the details. And our job is not to pass judgment.
Damon La Tanzi [00:28:49]:
It's to work, you know, in the way that's going to best serve that that client, if they want to have everything explained to them, we can do that. If it's more of just give me the big picture, and you know that we can handle that as well. But it's really about, how do you want to approach this situation? And we can help guide you in that way.
Mark Rowlette [00:29:04]:
Yeah, we did a workshop a few weeks ago at the Scarlet Oak, and I remember talking to two ladies who came together to the workshop, and they were asking me, you know, hey, we want to come in and sit down and see you. I like the idea that you don't charge a fee, you don't obligate us to anything, and it doesn't sound like a sales pitch. I'm like, I hope it doesn't, because it isn't. It's just a conversation. They said, but we both have existing advisors. And I said, here's what I would suggest you do, is let's sit down. Then we can have a conversation around the stuff that you should be doing, then go and meet with your existing advisors and ask them those questions. Ask them the what if.
Mark Rowlette [00:29:38]:
What if. My. Both of these ladies were married. They just were the ones who were in charge of the money. They were not looking at it from the perspective of, we're getting towards the end of putting money in to getting to the beginning of taking money out, creating their own paycheck. So I said, ask questions around, well, what happens if my husband passes away? How's that going to impact me tax wise? How's that going to impact the money? How should we be investing the money, not just for today, but for tomorrow and 15 or 20 years from now and ask all those questions? And if that advisor is unsure or looks unsure, well, maybe that advisor who has done a wonderful job accumulating your wealth and helping you build your money is not the right type of person for the stage in life that you're at now? I think that's critically important is that not. Not all advisors are created, right.
Damon La Tanzi [00:30:22]:
It's not good advisor, bad advisor. It's what is the focus of that advisor's practice, and are they really equipped to help you transition to this next phase in your life? We really, frankly, see that all the time. You know, advisor did a great job, you know, when a client was younger, and now they're at the stage where they're thinking about taxes, they're thinking about income, they're thinking about legacy health care, Social Security, Medicare. And it's sort of a lot of rides, like, well, we just don't do that part.
Mark Rowlette [00:30:45]:
And that's okay. It's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. It's, you know, you go to a, I don't know, go to a Toyota dealership, you don't expect to walk in there and buy a Chevy.
Mark Rowlette [00:30:55]:
Right.
Mark Rowlette [00:30:55]:
Because they sell Toyotas. Right. So I think the difference between our firm, not just from an investment perspective, it's. It's like everything is talked about because to me, that's how you are able to help a person, client, couple from a more holistic approach. Right. Don't just focus in on the thing that drives direct revenue to the company. Focus on the things that are the most important things to the people that we serve, and try to make sure that you are not leaving any stone unturned, especially if longevity wise, you're going to be around longer than your spouse. Today's show, really, the theme was, you know, some of the challenges that the women that we work for face as they go through life, whether it be, you know, you had that, what they call that motherhood penalty of, like, I had three kids, so I missed, you know, that period of time in the workforce.
Mark Rowlette [00:31:39]:
Now I'm playing catch up and my salary is lower and how do I save money and to, you know, I lost my spouse, but I've been, you know, alive for 1015 years beyond him passing away and ways to prepare around that proactively, nothing necessarily to the plan. And the goal is my spouse is going to die. So what do I do? It's, what do I do to put my best foot forward, to put more money in my father?
Damon La Tanzi [00:32:02]:
Maybe it's just as simple as you never connected with your existing advisor or we talk about this a lot. Our industry has done a poor job in a lot of areas. This is not the only area. But if you just have felt neglected or looked past or looked over, maybe it's time for a change. Maybe it's time for a new look at. Well, what can I do about these important issues that aren't going away? We'd welcome an opportunity to talk to you. Whether or not you end up working with us, listen, that's your decision. But it really starts, I think, with at least taking some action to start, to put together a plan so that you will feel better about these challenges, issues, opportunities that are coming.
Mark Rowlette [00:32:37]:
Yeah. And listen, in the theme of today's show being that the Boston marathon is tomorrow, and like what you said earlier, damon, a marathon is a marathon. It's not a sprint. Retirement planning is not a sprint. Right. It's a marathon. And if you're already in retirement. If you're already taking distributions, it doesn't mean there's not lots of things that you can do to prepare yourself in the most efficient way possible for the rest of your life.
Mark Rowlette [00:32:59]:
So that's a real reason to kind of reach out. You know, do research, talk to the people that are working with your money. And if you don't feel satisfied, give us a call here at the office. Come to a live event or, you know, just come down and have an appointment and just see if there's something that you didn't know, you didn't know.
Disclosure [00:33:16]:
Investment advisory products and services services made available through Aewealth Management, a registered investment advisor. Insurance products are offered through the insurance business Roulette and Associates, LLCDBA South Shore Retirement services Roulette and Associates, LLCDBA South Shore Retirement Services is also an investment advisory practice that offers products and services through AE Wealth Management, LLC, a registered investment advisor. AewM does not offer insurance products. The insurance products offered by Roulette and Associates, LLC DBA South Shore retirement services are not subject to investment advisor requirements. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Any references to protection, safety, or lifetime income generally refer to fixed insurance products, never securities or investments. Guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims paying abilities of the issuing carrier. This podcast is intended for informational purposes only.
Disclosure [00:34:19]:
It is not intended to be used as the sole basis for financial decisions, nor should it be construed as advice designed to meet the particular needs of an individuals situation. Mark Roulette and Associates, LLCDBA South Shore Retirement Services is not permitted to offer a no statement during this show shall constitute tax or legal advice. Our firm is not affiliated with or endorsed by the us government or any governmental agency. The information and opinions contained herein provided by third parties have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. By Mark Roulette and Associates, LLcDBA South Shore Retirement Services thank you for subscribing.
Jordan Rich [00:35:01]:
And downloading the retire South Shore radio podcast. Feel free to leave a review and a rating and tell your friends about us. For much more, visit retiresouthshore.com. that's retiresouthshore.com. discover how South Shore retirement services helps individuals and their families achieve their ideal retirements.