And good evening.

You've got more than money.

You've got Gene Dickison, your host, your personal financial advisor at your service and happy to be doing so.

If you have just a little bit of time, the next half an hour might be very, very important to you, because as we have recently discovered, we are without a doubt the most relevant financial show on television today.

And I say that with no reservations because everything we talk about relates right back to you.

All of the materials that we discussed this evening, it's all based on questions that you've sent us, concerns that you have about your investments, your retirement, perhaps income tax challenges, Roth conversions, perhaps estate planning questions.

Should I put my kids on the deed to my home is a very common one.

And business questions how to start a business, how to run a business, how to manage your business, maybe even how to liquidate a business so that you have the maximum gain.

All of those are fair topics, but they're general topics.

You send us specific questions, ones that are 100% targeted to you, and that allows us to be the most relevant financial show on television today and so happy that PBS's 39 allows us the forum to do exactly that.

So the email address that you will see shortly, Gene, and ask him Time.com allows you to reach out to us.

Many of those questions will appear on future shows.

Not all.

We don't have nearly enough time, but every single question, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of questions a year are answered directly.

Every single one back to you, even by the way, the silly ones.

And we get some silly ones, as you might expect.

That's the world is an interesting place filled with interesting people.

Speaking of silly ones and interesting people, those two phrases go rather nicely together as we bring back to the studio our financial correspondent, Megan.

Good evening.

Good evening, Jean.

Silly and interesting is a very nice compliment.

Our first question tonight says, I love your show.

However, I'm concerned about the future of the other viewers out there.

We are at a tipping point of a financial disaster.

Inflation rages, equities and paper assets are at record levels of overvaluation.

Corruption in all walks of life is rampant.

The labor participation rate is poor, and the Fed can't print our way out of it like the other recessions, because of already high inflation in a recession depression, all assets collapse except one.

The one that you're not advising cash.

It's time to sell.

If one does, they are only taking the profits they made from the run up to around the start of this year.

What are your thoughts on that, Jean?

Remember what I said about we answer all of them, even the silly ones.

This isn't a silly question.

As much as it's symptomatic of what a lot of folks would like to believe they possess, which is some form of inside tract on the future of America, our economy, the world, its economy in that they know something that thank heavens for them no one else knows.

And they're the beacon of truth in a sea of darkness and ignorance.

I mentioned tongue in cheek at the beginning of most shows that I claim 780 years of experience.

Let's put that aside for a moment.

That's just one of life's great mysteries.

But in the decades and decades of my career, I have heard this very same drum beat dozens of times, maybe hundreds of times.

There was even a gentleman back in the seventies and eighties who fortuitously had the last name of rough r u f f. He took advantage of that of that name and developed his newsletter called The Rough Time was because he predicted financial meltdown and recommended all manner of various things in response to exactly the scenario that this viewer is suggesting, he made millions.

He was wrong.

Around the late nineties, early 2000, there was a gentleman, Harry Dent, who decided to write books on the coming financial Armageddon.

He's written three or four, predicting none of them have come true.

The closest that we've come to what this gentleman describes is 2008, 2009, that time period where the market dropped dramatically, the economy had serious challenges, and we had some real uphill battles to overcome in order.

Hopefully throughout the entirety of that that that prevail.

And I'm sure there are lots of you, lots of us who said maybe this is it.

And it wasn't it hasn't been it doesn't expect I don't expect none of the folks that we trust expect that it will be this time around.

So let's put aside the histrionics.

Let's put aside the drama.

Let's put aside the assumption that there's a lone viewer of truth.

Let's talk about cash.

Is it the right time to go to cash?

Well, you are seeing the show after we have put it live to tape a number of weeks in advance.

So you had the advantage on me of knowing how the markets have performed since I put these ideas to you.

But bottom line is that we've seen some small but positive indicators of a floor perhaps coming up, both from the economic standpoint and the stock market standpoint.

So is are we still on track?

I guess we'll find out an election is in our future or if you're seeing it after the election in our past.

So if it's still in your future, vote early vote often, that's really good advice.

Bottom line is you can choose the doom and gloom prognostication and put your money in cash.

And then a year from now, when your cash is only worth $0.92 on the dollar because of inflation, where are you then, if indeed you sit on the sidelines in cash for two years and everything else does what it does and your cash, right, your purchasing power of your cash has now dropped to $0.81.

What have you done?

If we found a high inflation rate and this gentleman's predictions, we could see a time where you will lose the purchasing value of your dollar.

It will become your dollar is will become worth less and less and less.

There are significant alternatives.

Do you have to sit in cash versus sitting in stocks?

Nope.

There are alternatives statements.

There are alternative platforms.

There are ways to get guaranteed returns of three, four, five, six, 7% guaranteed principal protected on lots of different levels.

Is that the right answer for you?

I don't have a clue.

I don't know enough about you.

So the pros and cons, you've got to experience in the context of what's important to you.

Most of our questions that we air on air give us a fair amount of detail so that we know what's appropriate for them.

I don't know that for a fact about our next question, but let's find out.

Megan, can we help our next viewer?

I'm sure we can.

This question says, My wife and I are retired but concerned.

Although we have a nest egg, a41k and Ira is totaling around $1 million, we are hoping that it's enough to get us through and still leave some money to our three children.

With the volatility in the stock market and threats of a recession, I think that we would be better off converting what we can to cash or some safe investment before we lose a lot of our savings to dropping stocks.

My wife says we should leave it alone and that the market will rebound and we'll be just fine.

But please let us know your thoughts on the matter.

Well, that's a nice segway from cash to a question about cash, but notice the difference in tone.

Gentleman suggesting he's got some real concerns.

Every thoughtful person has real concerns considering the environment that we find ourselves in at the moment.

His wife, on the other hand, either has similar concerns but has met them, has laid them to rest or isn't as concerned.

One of the reasons she might not be concerned is whether or not they are reliant on the income from their savings to meet their bills, to pay their bills, be b b all of their obligations taking care of and be happy and healthy.

If she knows that either through pensions or Social Security or other sources that everything is taken care of in dependent of their investments, that should give her great peace of mind.

That should give him great peace of mind that through the ups and downs of the investment cycles, that, by the way, they don't go up and down and end up in the same point.

They go up and down over an incline.

It's the analogy that was once given pretty good when a yo yo feels like the stock market's a yo yo.

It is, but it's a yo yo being done walking up the stairs.

So you end up at higher and higher points.

She could very well be right.

I'm confident she is, because whenever I'm given the choice between a husband being right and a wife being right, I choose the right way.

I always go with the wife.

It's safer that way.

I just it's self-preservation, you understand?

Bottom line is, I think she's right.

Be very clear.

However, both of you, be very clear.

Everything's dependent on cash flow.

If you have the appropriate cash flow, if you have sufficient cash flow to meet your bills, be happy, be healthy.

Then the investment piece becomes icing on the cake.

Now, you mentioned early on in your email about legacy, about leaving funds for your family that could very well be done in a very different way to ideas that you should consider.

Number one, life insurance.

Life insurance, properly constructed and properly funded with perhaps the the profits from your savings would ensure would guarantee that your legacy would be exactly the dollar amount that you choose.

And number two, there are annuity platforms today, very, very dynamic platforms that would allow you, particularly inside your IRAs, etc., to draw the incomes that you are required to take your RMDs and yet be able to give the original amount directly to your heirs as long as there's a dollar left in the account.

So simple example you have $500,000 in the IRA.

You are required to spend that down over the course of 30 years.

It comes down, it's $50,000 and you pass away, your heirs get $500,000.

The original investment.

So in many cases a lot of folks are looked at that is as as being able to spend your money and still give it away.

Some have said it sounds like having your cake and eating it, too.

And in that case, probably pretty accurate description.

So bear best approach.

Sit with a financial advisor that you trust, one that has good experience, go through your numbers, get some confidence that you're solid in terms of of your cash flow, and then make choices that will best fit you going forward.

Excellent email, much more positive.

I was very happy to hear that one.

So, Megan, we're about halfway through a show.

Are we going to turn up or down?

Are we positive or negative?

With our next question.

I think this one's pretty positive.

It says we are a retired couple aged 75 and 80 respectively.

We are able to live comfortably on the income from our pensions and Social Security with investment income as a superfluous added benefit.

We own our co-op and auto with no debt.

Our estate is valued at approximately 2.5 million, including IRAs, our home savings and auto, etc.

Exclusive of our pension and Social Security income.

We have no children and no heirs.

Our question is how can we find a reliable person or organization to manage our financial affairs in the event that one or both of us becomes physically or mentally impaired?

How can a stranger or fiduciary be trusted to look out for our interests?

Thank you for your help.

It's a very serious question, and I appreciate your your trust in us in sending us your question.

It is a challenge, no question about that.

The emotional piece is every bit as um, of concern as the financial piece is.

Yes.

How do you trust a stranger?

How do you identify someone that you would excuse me?

Your goodness.

Tremendous.

This life savings in their hands in the event that you're not able to do that yourself.

There are indeed companies that are referred to as trust companies.

They are in hat and have been for decades, in some cases hundreds of years, put in a position of trust by their clients.

Identifying one of those perhaps could be a direction that you might wish to go.

It might require, yes.

Interviewing them might require going through their background and through their track record to get comfortable that they're the right choice for you.

Yes, there are registered investment advisors, fiduciary advisors out there that you could have the same type of process with sit with a financial advisor who is a fiduciary and get comfortable.

That might be one interview, that might be five interviews.

It might be going through their backgrounds.

It might be any manner of of approaches.

So that you get comfortable, so that you are competent.

If in spite of the fact that you don't have any direct family and a direct connections in in that sense, you may have friends, colleagues, associates that you could connect to, either a financial advisor or a trust company, and they could do it in a, in a co fashion.

Co trustees, co advisors.

That's a suggestion that you might look at as well, keeping in mind that you could also develop through an attorney that you trust a document that would describe exactly what should or should not be done in the event that one or both of you is no longer able to handle your financial picture yourselves.

Those kind of trusts are not unusual at all, and you can again select either a trust company or a fiduciary advisor to take charge of those funds at the point that they become appropriate.

Of course, we pray they never become appropriate.

You always stay healthy to the very last moment and then you are taken home.

But getting your ducks in line is very wise of you.

75 and 80.

Still young.

You may only have 30 or 40 more good years left, so you've got to get this taken care of.

Start with a trusted, experienced attorney, perhaps interview a trusted, experienced financial advisor, and then extend that out to trust companies.

We have in our more than money world headquarters had the experience often over the years of being named as co advisors on accounts that are held by trust companies.

So there's a lot of ways there are a lot more ways to address your concerns than maybe it appears at the moment.

But your concerns are real.

They should be addressed.

It should be considered an urgency.

So please don't sit on that.

Reach out if you need referrals or begin your own interview process and get this under control.

If for no other reason to achieve peace of mind.

As we have said most recently, the questions that are at the top of your mind like this, our answers are intended to give you the peace of mind, of knowing you're making the right choice for you, making let's help someone else make the right choice for them.

What's our next question?

Our next email says, I need to roll over $50,000 plus from A for a1k and originally plan to add it to my current Roth IRA.

I had Matrix Trust Company withhold federal tax from the plan disbursement.

Am I correct in thinking that the $50,000 plus which I roll over is the principle that I can withdraw at any time?

Is there a limit on the amount I can withdraw?

I am 51 years old and this is the only savings I have for retirement.

However, I am comfortable with the idea of being able to withdraw from the principal if I should need to.

Thank you for your help.

Yeah.

You're not going to be happy with me.

Who?

I wish the answer was yes.

Yes, yes.

But it sounds like there's two things.

One, that has already happened that won't make me happy, and one that is just reality and it won't make you happy.

The first is it sounds like this is a done deal.

It sounds like you've already taken the money from your 41k, had taxes withheld and dropped into your Roth IRA.

If that is the case, then it is a done deal.

If it's not the case, then we may have the opportunity to to kind of retrofit our strategy here a little bit.

But it sounds like it is the case.

I'm making that assumption at 51.

You do not have access to the Roth IRA without penalty.

The Roth IRA five year rule states that under typical circumstances, you make contributions to a Roth IRA as long as the earnings have been in there at least five years.

The IRA has been in existence for five years acquiring earnings, accumulating earnings.

The earnings are tax free.

The principal is always tax free and penalty free.

As long as you're 59 and a half or older, you're eight and a half years away if we're being generous, eight years away.

So no, if this is a done deal, do you have access to the principal, the answer is no, not without penalty.

And while you will not pay tax, you will pay a penalty if you take money from that.

So I am hoping hope for that you have other assets that you can draw on in an emergency, that you have perhaps equity in your home, that you might draw on savings in the bank, etc..

If you need to outline those and look more carefully at your options, make sure again that you sit with a trusted, experienced financial advisor.

Sorry, I don't think you're happy with my answer, but make sure that you understand that from a tax standpoint.

Very often financial advisory questions that seem to be investment questions have an income tax component.

This one certainly did.

Hopefully we helped make it.

Let's get a little more upbeat here.

Let's let's get a question I can answer more positively.

Hopefully, this one's positive.

It's another tax related question, though.

It says, I am 70 years old and about to sell the house I've lived in for the last 30 years.

I would like to give my daughter $70,000 of the proceeds to buy her first home, with the proviso that I live there also until I pass.

I'm wondering what tax implications will I encounter, if any?

Thank you.

None.

Now you'll be able to do this rather easily, and you're asking specifically about about the gifts part.

You're not asking about the tax on the home.

That's a whole different set of rules.

We'll put that aside.

That wasn't your question.

Can you gift your daughter $70,000?

Sure.

Yes, you may.

Tax for you.

No tax for her.

Now, a couple of pieces of paper.

Yep.

So what?

Easily done.

Couple of signatures.

Easing the issue with the proviso that you live there for as long as you live is a different issue.

And it's not a tax issue.

It is a legal issue.

There are two ways to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish.

Number one would be, Hey, sweetheart, I'm giving you this money.

Make sure you know I'm going to live here as long as I live.

And and for some families, that would be enough.

That would be okay.

I wouldn't recommend it.

I don't think, particularly at age 70, when you've got literally the opportunity to be with us 30 or 40 more years and the types of changes that could occur in your life, in your daughter's life, life is rather dramatic.

I would strongly suggest that you work with a trusted, experienced attorney who is familiar with the concept of life estates.

Because she can buy a home, it can be her home and there can be attached to that home, a life estate that gives you the legal right to be in that home for as long as you live.

Independent of whomever might own it.

Your daughter, five years from now, might decide she wants to move to another state.

She could sell the home, but you still get to live there.

Now, that's interesting.

One of the things that might come to mind is who would buy a home under those circumstances?

Different question.

But the reality is your daughter might pass away.

Sadly, her children take over.

You still live there, your daughter might divorce.

Sadly, the home might be split, might need to be sold.

You still live there, you have the legal right.

No one can evict you.

So make sure that you're doing this properly.

Make sure you're doing this in a way that gives you the maximum peace of mind and your daughter, the maximum peace of mind of knowing that her father is well taken care of for as long as he should live.

Not difficult to do, but make sure you're crossing your t's dot in your eyes and getting it done correctly.

Megan One more.

Sure.

I love when you answer that previous question and you say if someone bought the house, they get a free grandpa.

This question says, I am slowly drawing down monies from my TSP, which is a traditional IRA and want to put the funds into a vanguard.

Roth IRA.

I'm 66 years old and currently work as a school bus driver.

I know I can put up to $7,000 into a Roth IRA per year and would like your expertize as to which fund would be best for growth.

I do not need the money at this time.

Thank you for your advice.

Oh, you're very kind.

Thank you very much.

Bringing money out of an IRA and sending it to a Roth.

It doesn't matter how much you can contribute on a yearly basis because there are no limitations to conversions.

There is a difference in the Roth world, the IRA world, between a conversion and a contribution.

At your age, the contribution limit, how much you can put in per year is $7,000 scheduled to go up next year, but $7,000 as of 2022.

And you can do that at any time if you have part time earnings as as long as they are at least $7,000, you can put all of that into the IRA.

No worries.

And it can go into either a traditional or a Roth.

That's your choice.

What you're describing is a conversion from a traditional to a Roth, and you can do as much dollars there as you wish.

There will be no objections by anyone, the IRS included, because, as the conversion says, when I'm going from traditional to Roth, I'm also paying the tax.

So the IRS gives a gets a big smile on its face.

Isn't that lovely that you're willing to give us money now, even though you don't have to?

In my opinion, depending on your circumstances, could be a very wise idea.

It could push money off that will then grow tax deferred and potentially many years in the future be completely tax free at 66.

A young person that you are having 20 or 30 years down the road, a bunch of money, how sophisticated a term was that?

A bunch of money come to your tax break could be very, very good.

And depending on how the financial fortunes of our country go, we may find ourselves in exceptionally high tax brackets 1020, 30 years from now, you may end up looking literally like a genius.

So you can pay me now.

Pay me later.

You're choosing to pay me now.

I think that works out very, very well.

As for recommending a fund, I simply can't.

We don't recommend anything like that in isolation.

Not unlike asking a doctor at a party.

Hey, I got this thing going.

What would you.

What would you prescribe?

I don't unless I know what other prescriptions you're taking.

And I say I know what your complete medical background is.

It would be malpractise as this would be as well.

Unless I know your complete financial picture, what your goals are, what your risk tolerance is, etc., recommending a fund from Vanguard or any other group.

Vanguard's a wonderful group.

They have lots of wonderful funds, some average funds and some sticky funds.

So it's not a one size fits all.

Can't be.

You've going to have to make sure that you're consulting with a a financial advisor you trust.

It's got the experience to look at your entire picture and then give you a recommendation that's actually valuable to you, that actually fits you, and that's really the key.

Everything that we do on more than money is intended to fit you, the viewer, the audience member, the person sending us the email.

And sometimes, just sometimes as you're listening, go, wow, that applies to us too.

And that's a fortuitous result that we hope for with so many folks getting to watch us.

We count on that and we hope that during the course of this show, you learned enough that you said, I think I want to be a regular viewer of more than money.

And maybe, just maybe, I'd like to get personal advice as well.

Send me that email, Jeanne Glennie, and ask him to come.

We'll be happy to answer it directly back to you and maybe even see it on a future show.

Folks, thanks for spending part of your evening with us.

I know your time is valuable.

It means a great deal that you share that with us.

Hopefully you are willing to come right back here next week as we return on More Than Money.