Eating.

You've got more than money.

You've got Gene Dickison your host, your personal financial adviser.

Happy to be with you this evening.

Happy to be serving you.

Happy to be hoping, hopefully helping you out a little bit and getting from wherever you are in your financial life to wherever you wish to be, where your goals are set to the future.

And hopefully we can help you get there a little less fast with a less muss and maybe even with a couple of ideas that make it a little shorter as well.

So now, hopefully you've been with us in the past.

You know exactly how this works.

You've seen us do this time and time again.

But if you are just joining us for the first time, if this is your first more than money experience, a couple of things you need to know.

We are the most relevant financial show on television today, without a doubt, bar none, because you make us so we answer your questions.

We identify what's most important to you, and we address them in the best way that we possibly can.

Number two, half an hour's very quick.

You think it seems like a lot.

It would be, of course, if you were leaning against a hot stove.

But in reality, it goes very, very quickly.

So you don't want to wander off.

You'll miss a lot.

And number three, if you find yourself at any point being even mildly entertained, you have my sincerest apologies.

It happens on occasion.

But what happens more often on occasion is that you send us your emails gene at ask MTM dot com works very very well.

We have an entire team that answers all of your questions Back to you.

The silly ones, the hard ones, the really, really challenging ones, all of them.

You get responses for all of your questions.

And then Megan, our financial correspondent, picks some of the most interesting ones, some of the ones that we think the audience will share.

Some commonality with and maybe learn from, maybe be able to use in their own lives.

And we air those on our shows.

We can't air all of your questions.

Far too many, but we'll put as many as we can to the test.

So, Megan, let's get started right away this evening.

Where do we start?

What questions should I answer?

Hygiene.

Your first question tonight says, Dear Gene and Megan, we really enjoy your show.

My question is, how can I best organize my assets to maximize what ends up with my two daughters?

Assuming that I am a member of your Triple H Club, the bulk of my assets are in Vanguard accounts in various index and bond funds.

I'm a recent widower aged just 64, with the following Vanguard accounts.

Brokerage is 1.9 million rollover IRA 4.8 million inherited IRA brokerage account 500,000 Roth IRA brokerage account 20,000.

And an inherited Roth IRA 50,000.

I'm sorry, 200,000 was the middle one.

What do you think of setting up some trust and or LLC accounts with myself and my two daughters as members and funding them with some of the Vanguard assets?

How to how best do I reconfigure these accounts to maximize the amount passed down to my two daughters?

I live pretty modestly, and I can't imagine my needing much of any of those funds.

Thank you for your help.

Well, goodness, thank you for your kind words.

And I can certainly relate to the it's really for my daughters.

You have two.

I have three now.

I have a granddaughter.

So daughters are really, really important.

I'm going to dissuade you.

I'm going to talk you out of your suggestion about trust.

I'm going to hopefully open up a new opportunity for you, a new thought process, a new strategy that you might consider that gets you where you want to go.

In my opinion, you'll decide that, of course, whether it fits.

My condolences at the passing of your bride.

This, in essence, creates an alert and urgency.

You need to have your estate plan in in good stead.

You need to have it well documented.

You need to have it well-planned kind of sooner rather than later.

You're very young.

And indeed, the Triple H Club Happy, healthy, 100.

We invite you to join us and follow along so that you and I will only have 30 or 40 more good years together.

But having your estate plan in good order will give you tremendous peace of mind.

Remember, happy, healthy, healthy is awesome.

Mentally healthy, spiritually healthy and peace of mind is very, very valuable.

So having having said all of that, your suggestion about trust, putting some of these assets in trust, in my opinion, you should certainly, of course, consult with your estate planning attorney, but in my opinion, really doesn't work.

The assets that you're describing here, the vast majority of these assets, the real bulk of the assets, they're all in IRAs.

IRAs are not useful assets to be placed into a trust that doesn't work very well either from a mechanical standpoint, logistical standpoint, tax standpoint, it doesn't work very well.

Could you look at your brokerage account?

That's nearly $2 million and see that as a possibility either for gifting or for some sort of joint ownership?

That's for sure.

Could you look at your home for a similar circumstances?

There's.

Sure.

But I would suggest you might consider a a very different but maybe far simpler way to address your concerns with your current estate.

The federal government currently would not tax it.

There's no inheritance tax there.

But in terms of Pennsylvania, assuming that you live in Pennsylvania or any state that has inheritance tax, the tax can be really, really onerous.

In your case, not unusual if it would be between 400 and $500,000 just to the state of Pennsylvania.

There may be some settlement costs, final burial expenses, etc..

So let's use 500,000 as an example of what it might cost in order to settle your estate for your daughter's.

Consider the use of life insurance.

I realize life insurance has been around forever, and it's not a terribly creative idea.

But if your health is solid, life insurance will allow you to leverage some small piece of what you've currently accumulated that will blossom into $500,000 at your passing, and that liquid asset will pay the taxes on everything else that you've got.

It will eliminate lots of issues around legalities that may or may not work.

It will eliminate lots of issues around taxation in terms of gifts or not.

But it could very well provide your daughters with breathing room.

The ability to accept your estate, not with without the pressure of, gosh, I've got to hurry up and sell something in order to pay the bills.

So look at that very carefully.

Hopefully you qualify rather easily.

There are lots of kinds of life insurance, so work with a life insurance consultant that you trust.

And then of course, as you make progress, if you have questions, circle back.

It's really for your daughters.

I'm all about daughters.

We're always here to help.

Makes a great start.

And of course, as a daughter yourself, I'm sure you appreciate a father wanting to do the very best.

I do very much appreciate that.

Our next email says, I just turned over all my 41k holdings to my planner.

He said I had to sign them over before he could legally continue.

Did I do the right thing?

Okay.

Lucky for you, I'm just kidding.

I didn't turn anything over, but I was told I needed to do something like that to have him hold all my holdings for me before I could see what his plans for me would be.

Is that how that works?

I have to sign all my holdings over before I hear what your plan might be.

Thank you.

Well, it's very interesting that you say.

Lucky for me, you didn't do that yet.

Lucky for you you did not do that.

We are very appreciative on more than money of folks who ask before they do something proactive, heavily looking for guidance.

Sadly, lots of the questions that we get describe a tragic set of circumstances of I did this and this and it didn't work out well and it's a real mess.

And how do I fix it?

It's way easier to fix before you make a mess.

So this is outstanding.

We love questions like this.

This is a head scratcher coming from a financial advisor who's been doing this for 780 years.

The premise that this advisor is working under his Send me your money and then I'll tell you what I would suggest you deal with it.

It's in the top three of the goofiest things I've ever heard.

It would be analogous.

You go, You want to build a home, you want to build your dream home.

You think it's going to be about 700,000 bucks real money.

You go to a builder and the builder says, I can do that.

Give me the 700,000, or we'd like to see the plans.

We'd like to see what ideas you have and kind of get a sense of what we're going to get.

No, that's not how we work.

You give me your money and then I'll tell you what kind of house I'm going to build for you.

I'm thinking you'd walk out pretty quickly, as you should do with this financial advisor.

This makes no sense whatsoever.

The reality is a relatively brief conversation, an hour or less, a quality financial advisor, an experienced financial advisor can quickly review your circumstance and your goals and give you a very solid sense of the types of investment plan you should be following at no charge whatsoever with you out, not not moving a single dollar so that you have a a very realistic view of what it would look like to be a client of that particular financial advisor in advance.

Well, before you sign anything over, I would suggest one of two motivations that that this advisor is is is being driven by neither of which are good, the first of which is he or she is not very good.

They are desperately in search of clients and they're terrified you're going to walk away.

So rather than risk it, they're going to say, Hey, send us your money.

Then we'll tell you what we're going to do, kind of keeping under wraps.

Or number two, they simply have no clue they're there.

Their level of incompetence is is Signet arrogant?

And they're going to need tremendous amounts of help from someone to figure this out once the money is there.

Neither of these is a good motivation, has nothing to do with you or serving you or being in your best interest.

Obviously, a second opinion, a third, if you wish to consult with any number of financial advisors, all of which all the quality ones will be happy to give you some very serious detail about the type of plan, the type of investments they would approach without you moving a dime.

Now, one thing I will say, and it's not in defense of this advisor, there is no defense.

But one thing I will say we are more than money.

Advisors have traditionally been very clear in advance without moving money what we intend to do.

But once there's an agreement, once the client is comfortable, once the client understands and is in agreement, we do ask them to move the money in tact.

Do not move money.

The previous question had dollars in five or six different accounts.

Do not call your advisor and say sell everything and then send it to Jean.

Do not do that.

Bring everything over exactly as it is so that we can make the adjustments in a controlled sense, in a in a controlled fashion, in a in a tax sensitive way as well, so that we, the client and our advisors have that that control that that direction over how this unfolds.

Allowing a current advisor to simply liquidate everything in many cases can cause tremendous upheaval and real negative results.

We don't recommend that.

We do recommend bring everything over intact.

We'll adjust it from there.

Very interesting and again, proactive.

Next, we have someone that can be proactive as well.

Well, our next question comes from a viewer that apparently we had to wear her down a little bit before she became a fan.

It says, Hello, Jean team.

I watch your show every week.

I must confess, however, that the first and second, even the second time I watched, I was not impressed.

But I kept watching.

And the third time was the charm.

Speaking of charm, Jean, you are quite the charmer yourself.

I love your humor.

How gracious and kind you are, and especially the information you give us.

I watched the answer you gave to someone turning 73 in August who was asking about RMDs.

I will turn 73 in November of 2025 and I had no idea I could start taking my RMD in January already that so soon?

Plus you told us that it's based on a calendar year and the calculation is done in December for the following year.

I contacted my financial guy and we had a nice conversation.

He will contact me January 2025 with the amount I must take minus taxes.

I'm so glad I was able to not sound stupid when talking with him.

And that's a credit to you.

Dear Jean.

I automatically tape your show every week now.

Have a great week, Jean team.

I love the sound of that.

A play on Dream team, but probably you get that all the time.

Well, gosh, I don't know how to respond.

I am gosh, apparently in in small amounts.

I'm very unimpressive.

What's the kids in school?

They say it grows on you like fungus.

Okay.

I appreciate all the kind words.

And eventually we wear you down.

That's.

That's fantastic.

I wanted this email, this question, This description is not really a question to be shared for two reasons.

Number one, admittedly, our show's kind of it's it's different.

There's no question about it.

And it might take two or three tries.

So if you've been recommending us to some of your friends or family and they're coming back after one or two shows going, I'm not really sure, tell them to go for three because there is a different rhythm.

There's no question about it.

This is this is intended intended to be very specific, very personal to the person asking the question.

We're just very lucky that lots of folks share these kind of concerns.

So that that was one of my reasons for wanting to air this question.

A second is this issue of it.

It is a fear inducing situation when you're dealing with a professional, in this case a financial professional, and you don't want to sound stupid, you don't want to ask a question and and have that feeling of, gosh, everybody in the world knows that except me.

And the reality is this has got nothing to do with you.

Your financial person, your financial guy needs a little training up, a financial advisor who has not emphasized and re-emphasized to every single client.

There are no stupid questions.

You are absolutely encouraged.

We beg you ask questions if it's in the back of your mind.

If it seems really simple, doesn't matter.

Ask those questions at any point.

In order to get comfort, in order to get peace of mind, this young lady now has a very clear path to victory with her armed says she knows exactly what's going to happen.

She knows exactly when it's going to happen and how it's going to be done.

And so does her financial adviser.

The fact that she was coming up on R&D and they had not yet had that conversation again, as a financial advisor, that's your responsibility, that that is that's on you.

So encourage your clients to ask questions, re-emphasize that often so that they don't forget, communicate when big things are happening like armed.

These are coming up those kinds of things.

And one last point that just occurred to me of why I'm happy that we're reviewing this question.

There are lots of folks who watch our show, a coast to coast border, border and MTM, where more than money we're a national firm.

We have clients in many, many, many states.

We are not the only advisors.

This young lady has an advisor that she likes, appreciates, engages with, and just took some of our information and made that relationship better.

What a tremendous result.

That's incredibly good and really uplifting for us.

Millions of folks who see our show should be using financial advisors.

We would love to think we could serve all of you.

We can't.

That's just not humanly possible.

But if we can help your advisors be better advisors, if we can help your advisors who have your best interest at heart help you succeed even more.

And that's a good thing.

And and a lot of fun to makes is our next question.

A lot of fun.

Maybe not fun, but we'll find out.

This one says, I'm expecting to receive $285,000 in a divorce settlement from my soon to be ex spouses for one k. I would like to help one of our children with their $7,000 student loan debt and another child with their $18,000 credit card debt.

Wondering am I able to gift them this money without having to be taxed to death?

Thank you for your help.

I know now what this young lady is describing is the the separation.

It's done through an odd term is called a quadro qualified domestic relations order, I think is what that stands for.

It's been a long time since I've actually dug that.

Everybody just calls it Quadro.

It is what happens in a divorce where one spouse has the majority of their retirement funds.

In this case, it was in a401k, And typically if you take money out of a401k and give it to somebody else, there's tax because this is being divided due to a divorce.

There is no tax.

There's $285,000 will be rolled.

If it's done properly, will be rolled into an IRA for this young lady.

And as a result, that money intended for her retirement half of the of the total.

So this have intended for her retirement is has not yet been taxed and Uncle Sam will be very interested in you paying tax.

We do not know your age if you are under 59 and a half, not only will you pay tax, but you'll pay a penalty doubly bad.

Obviously, if you're 59 or older, you won't pay a penalty, but you'll still pay tax.

So to pull 7000 out, you might have to in order do to give 7000, you might have to take out eight or nine or $10,000 in order to give $18,000, you might have to take out 22 or 24 or $26,000.

This is intended for your long term financial security.

Your question is, can I do something short term that feels really good?

The answer is, of course you can.

It's your money.

But it would be a mistake.

It would be doing two things, in my opinion, that are mistaken.

Number one, it will be helping young people who need the help themselves with, to be blunt, relatively small issues.

I understand that owing $7,000 on a student loan is not fun, but it ain't 70,000 and we've seen $400,000 student loan balances.

So 7000 relatively easy hole for a young person with lots of years ahead of them to dig out of the 18,000.

Our credit card is a whole different ball of wax because it not only is it's a much larger number, of course, still relatively small to dig out of, but it suggests that there's a bigger problem at hand here.

$18,000 in credit card balances is not typical, certainly not typical of someone who is financially responsible.

So it would appear that at least one of your children needs financial advice more than they need money.

Perhaps both.

Certainly both would likely benefit from counseling with a financial adviser and getting their big picture, taking a review, taking a look at and and giving them some suggestions, some guidance as to what they could do better, maybe help them dig out of these kinds of things on their own.

I have mentioned on air numerous times that Dave Ramsey and his organization, in my opinion, the very best at counseling people who have gotten into debt and helping them get back out of debt.

So perhaps what you could do, which might be, in my opinion, far more valuable, is to introduce your children to a Dave Ramsey consultant type person to help them get out of debt on their own and be proud of getting out of debt on their own and be proud of the fact that they did not allow their mom, who has limited resources, to drain those limited resources even further in order for them to be bailed out of situations that they have created themselves.

Some folks would call that tough love.

Not really clear that applies.

Obviously, we don't know all the dynamics, but from one parent to another, I think that's a really good place to start.

And of course, if you need if you need a shoulder, shoulder to shoulder to to help deal with the kids, we're here to help.

Max.

I think we have time for one more.

Okay.

Our last question tonight says, I invested $49,000.

Two years later, I received a statement that my investment was now worth $38,000 investing in gold and silver.

I thought that was the best option, but it wasn't.

I lost more than $10,000.

And when I called them, the only answer they gave me was that the market goes up and down.

I do not want to put more money into this kind of business, but what do you think?

I appreciate your financial opinion.

Well, that's very kind of you.

It's an opinion.

Not all opinions are equal.

Social media would like you to believe that they are the popular press would like you to believe that they are.

They all announced something has happened that's rather important.

And I'll say, social media reacted negatively.

So what?

For the most part, they're boneheads and and goofs that are sitting quickly.

I've got to respond to this and let people know that not all opinions are equally valuable.

780 years of experience.

Yeah.

I think that that opinion financially anyway has some value to it.

In this case.

One of the reasons why I wanted to review this question is we got the question several weeks ago and in the interim gold has gone up a lot and so has silver.

So this individual who was all they said was markets go up and down pretty unhappy when it went down.

I'm wondering if this individual has the same current feelings, the 10,000 that they lost.

I don't know what they invested or how much what the percentage was that they lost, but maybe they've already gotten three, four, or 5000 of that back.

And are they still anxious to get out there?

The reality is they should be.

They should be.

They made an investment.

They put too much money into one type of investment, precious metals.

It didn't go the direction that they wanted.

And by the way, precious metals have not gone in a positive direction for years.

Is this recent resurgence interesting?

Is it long term?

No one knows for sure, but it sounds to me like this individual would benefit from having a bigger view of their investments, a bigger plan for their investments, a more clear plan for their investments, and maybe saw that at playing the long game.

The long game.

Fantastic questions.

You guys are the best.

Very, very interesting.

Of course, we take all the compliments.

We like that.

Most of them are directed at Meghan, understandably so.

But if you have a question, you don't hate.

Those were good.

They were interesting, but they're not.

My question.

Send it to us, Gene at G E N E at ASK MTM works really, really well.

We have an entire team that answers questions back to you.

So you will not have to wait long to get that response.

We don't use a I know we use AI.

We use the intelligence the old fashioned way.

We are intelligent when we answer your questions and hopefully you'll appreciate that.

Indeed.

So as we end up this show and encourage you to join us for our next show, send us email so that we can stay the most relevant financial show on television and return next week right here on another edition of more than.