And good evening.

You've got more than money.

You've got Gene Dickison, your host, your personal financial advisor with you for the next half an hour, serving you for the next half an hour.

I'm feeling very honored to be able to do so.

Thank you for joining our show.

If you're a loyal viewer, you know exactly how this works.

We take the most interesting emails that you send us, the most interesting questions, concerns, observations, even challenges.

And we bring them to you, hopefully demonstrating some of the insight, some of the thinking, some of the strategy and tactics that are involved in getting from point A to point B, not just in a financial academic way, not just talking about tax codes or about contract policy riders, but talking about you, talking about what's important to you, the things you're trying to accomplish and how best to accomplish those.

So we are, without a doubt no questions asked.

The most relevant financial show on television today, not because I'm so special, but because you are so special.

The questions you ask are far more interesting than anything I could come up with and far more relevant, far more important than things that I might suggest to discuss.

So we are very grateful to you for allowing us to serve you.

We are very grateful to you for sharing your concerns with us and allowing us to explore those with our audience far and wide.

We're getting responses back now coast to coast and border to border.

So PBS's reach is impressive indeed.

The world needs our prayers.

And if you will forgive me just for a moment, prior to going to Megan, our financial correspondent, and our questions for this evening.

The world needs our prayers, the barbarism that we have seen recently is not human.

The word unacceptable is is so bland as to be insulting.

It is it offends all of humanity and it disappoints so deeply for those of us vintage enough that we remember the efforts, the nonviolent efforts, the non- violent efforts.

Gandhi freed an entire country using nonviolent efforts of Martin Luther King, the advances that were made in racial equality, unthought of unthinkable until he brought nonviolence to the resistance, nonviolent resistance to immorality.

If we even go back in America to as far back as Thoreau in the 1800s, as as he stood, civil disobedience, not in anger, not in violence, anger and violence simply makes you barbaric and a criminal.

That's all that that makes you.

It simply doesn't make you right.

And in many ways, as we have seen, makes you so wrong that it's unthinkable that anyone with any humanity inside them would support you.

So if that was your objective, if barbarism was your tool to gain support, I assure you it will fail.

We pray for that failure of barbarism.

We pray for the health and safety of everyone around the world who simply wants to live in peace.

Megan Goodness.

There's a lot going on in the world, but let's focus on what's going on with our audience tonight.

Where do we start?

Sounds good to me.

Our first question tonight says, My sister and I own our parents home wondering should she be paying rent to me since she lives there?

My mother has been dead for five years.

My sister now decided that she will buy me out, but she wants me to pay her a sizable amount of the house, proceeds back to her for her choice to remodel.

She sent me a list of her costs, but I'm wondering why am I responsible for the total cost of everything?

Thank you for your advice.

Well, goodness.

The first thing we need to do is get the two of you to communicate.

And that may not be easy.

It sounds as if your parents have passed and you've been sharing this home for five years.

It sounds like this non communication has been going on for quite some time.

It may be useful.

It may be useful if the two of you can agree on a third party, perhaps a financial adviser, that that can act as kind of the mediator in all this.

I'm sure that our mediation companies out there that for a fair fee, will act in a similar fashion.

But the idea is, is to explain lay the groundwork, a ground work so that everyone can understand what their relative roles are.

If the two of you indeed own this property 50/50 and you have been owners since your mother passed five years ago, the fact that your sister has chosen to live there, that's perfectly fine.

Rent free makes no sense whatsoever.

Now, does it need to be full market rent?

In a sense it does.

But of course both of you are co-owners.

So if you were doing this properly, it hasn't been.

But if you were doing this properly, she would indeed pay full market value as a rental.

Let's pick a number and say it's $1,000 a month.

Is the market rent for this home.

And there are certain expenses that thousand dollars 12,000 a year would be reported to a partnership return.

The two of you are partners and then all the expenses that are incurred with owning the home, whether it's real estate, taxes, insurance and various other expenses would have been deducted.

And at the end of each year I'd say that we'd collected 12,000.

There were $8,000 of expenses.

There are two of you.

Each of you would have gotten a check for $2,000 and everything would be on track.

None of that has happened, and it may need a forensic accountant to go back that five years and kind of rebuild that, because I think, again, miscommunication, lack of communication.

I think your sister may be assuming, well, I'll buy her out for a relatively low price.

She has to pay for all the improvements.

It won't cost me very much in my world.

In the world of reality, none of that would be true.

The reality is it would be an appraisal done on the property to make sure that the price that's being paid is appropriate for both of you.

Fair market value there would be in a forensic accounting to determine what rents should have been paid.

There would certainly be a discussion around the improvement.

There are two types of improvements.

That a tenant, a tenant, which is what she is.

She's also an owner, but a tenant might put into effect.

Some are just for her own convenience or her own pleasure.

I want to repaint.

That's on you.

Hey, I'd like to to add a little curtains here that that's on you.

Gosh, the home needs new roof.

That's on the owner.

The home needs new plumbing.

That's on the owner.

But it is not your responsibility to pay all those.

You are half owner.

It is her responsibility to pay half as well.

So in my world, again, in my recommendation, better said you would be very wise to secure a third party financial advisor, perhaps an accountant, perhaps a tax advisor, perhaps that would say go through the numbers over the last five years and come up with a reasonable number.

Would not surprise me if her buyout is far larger than she expects.

When we add back in all of the the expenses, all of the rental, all the fees that she should have been paying lo these many years.

But you've got to be willing you've got to be strong.

You've got to represent yourself and and accept what you are do.

And I wish you the very best.

Interesting question.

Very interesting indeed.

Family dynamics, always a challenge, always a chore, even under the best of circumstances, a challenge.

We don't want to hurt feelings, but we also don't want to be taken advantage of.

And often having a third party in the room helps.

Megs, where do we go next?

Next, we have a husband and wife question.

It says on your radio show you discussed spousal Social Security benefits.

The wife could take her benefit early and have a penalty when her husband reaches his full Social Security benefit age.

She can then reapply to take half of his full benefit minus the penalty portions since she started hers early.

My question is, if the husband dies and the wife applies for his Social Security benefit, well, she still be penalized because she took her initial benefit early.

Thank you.

This is a most excellent question.

Social Security seems so straightforward and I assure you nothing could be further from the truth.

There are so many nuances, so many wrinkles, so many options that need to be explored.

We are blessed in our more than money world that we have a Social Security partner that knows all of these things to the tee so that we can custom these customize our answers for each and every client specific to their circumstance.

But fortunately, and with a small smile on my face, the answer is exactly what this gentleman is hoping it will be.

Yes, indeed.

If this young lady took her benefit early, there is a discount.

There is a reduction in her normal benefit.

Let's say her normal benefit would be $2,000.

And she took it at 62.

That would have brought it down to goodness, 13, 1400 roughly, because she took it early if she enjoyed all those benefits.

And when he turns normal retirement age and let's say his benefit is $4,000 a month, she will get half of that 2000, but that's also reduced as well.

So it may be a bump.

It may not.

His question is bump or not reduction or not at his passing, does she get 4000 bucks and the answer is yes.

Yeah, survivor benefits step away from that, that reduction, that discount scenario and allows her to collect the balance.

One of the reasons why it is often recommended that the the what more significant are earnings spouse the spouse has the higher earnings often is recommended that we wait as long as you can to take Social Security.

If you can wait till 70 at the max, that works out very, very well because it provides the most protection, even though we may lose you sooner than we wish, your spouse may be better protected, receive more benefits in the long run, and overall family benefits is really what we're we're targeting.

Excellent.

Very, very good.

That was a good question.

Hopefully our next one is good as well.

Megan.

It is a good one.

I think it's unfortunately one we see a lot.

It says over the years my advisor and I have had some real disagreements whenever I want to get out of the market.

He says, hang in whenever I say I want to get more stocks.

He says to stay put.

It seems like he always thinks that I'm wrong, but this is my money and I think I should have the final say last year was too much for me and I finally told him to get us out of the market in September.

Our accounts are in money markets and we're waiting until the markets settle down to get back in.

I'm wondering, what do your experts say about the right time to get back into the market?

Thanks.

What do my experts say?

Well, Zelda, the gypsy fortune teller, there are no experts that know when they get back into the market.

If there was any one, any system, any artificial intelligence, I that could predict exactly when to get in or out of the market, that particular system would have all the money in the world because the rest of us have no access to such cosmic knowledge.

The psychic ability that is often sought by clients who are looking to work with a financial advisor is normally found in the best of financial advisor offices in the form of psychotic ability.

Psychic not so much.

You got out last September with the idea of you're going to wait it out, get into the money market, make 0.6%, and hopefully know when it's time to get back in the time that you should have gotten back.

And likely, likely no assurances.

We don't have enough details from your emails to know precisely the time you should have gone back in was last September.

And let's let's go back to a statement you made that kind of jarred me.

It's my money.

Shouldn't I be able to do what I want?

Sure you can.

Of course you can.

Of course you may make.

And of course you should.

It's your money.

You can be as foolish with your money as you wish if you are constantly at odds with your financial advisor, one of you is wrong.

And I think we've already kind of stumbled into who that might be.

But you may want to do your financial advisor favor and decide to work with another financial advisor and maybe annoy the the new financial advisor, maybe do it on your own, maybe open up an independent account accounts, multiple accounts, and do it on your own.

It doesn't seem like you have the temperament to be part of a team, part of a team.

And if you're not convinced that your financial advisors wisdom, advice, counsel is superior valuable, then why are you working with him or her?

It doesn't make any sense.

If you kept going to a doctor who kept making you sick, why would you keep going?

So lots of great financial advisors.

Recently I had a chance to spend some time with, gosh, a couple dozen fabulous financial guys from all across the country.

There are a lot of them.

Why are you sticking with one that causes you agita?

And just as important a question, why is your financial advisor sticking with you?

Who undoubtedly is causing him or her agita?

If you have a good relationship, it is smooth, comfortable, easy, great communication and you come to conclusions jointly.

It doesn't seem that you have that.

You certainly should have that or you certainly could decide.

You simply do it on your own, on your own.

Interesting.

Interesting.

It's a bit of a head scratcher.

Not unusual, but a head scratcher.

Let's see if our next question's a bit more of the norm.

Well, hopefully, but there's a couple options.

I think that that this next emailer wants your advice on.

It says a previous employer presented me with four options for a pension that's near $36,000 one lump sum rollover to an IRA, two single lump sum cash payment, three monthly annuity, four leave it end to collect later.

I'm a 60 year old female with no dependents working full time with a gross salary over one 120 k. I own my own home.

I have no mortgage, no credit card, car or school debt.

As for the roll over the limit it to two options, one to a fidelity IRA or two to a non Fidelity IRA check payable to the IRA.

But they send the check to me and not directly to my IRA provider.

I don't have a fidelity account at this time, so it could go to one of two of my IRA providers.

I didn't know that they're allowed to send a rollover directly to me.

I worked in the industry for a few years and I've never heard of this.

What are your thoughts on my different choices?

I love the show.

I wish it was an hour long.

Thank you.

Well, you're very kind.

An hour?

They're afraid Gene's going to nod off.

Just.

Well, I backed that.

That's.

That's their fear.

I'm kidding.

Okay, You've given us a wonderful summary that.

That gives me very, very good guidance, and the answer ends up being quite simple.

So I'm quite encouraged by this entire question.

First of all, congratulations.

Good for you.

You are in a very strong financial position.

Very, very strong.

No debt.

You own your own home.

You've got investments put away.

You're still working and earning a very substantial income.

Well done.

Well done.

You now this pension, a relatively small amount of money, but certainly not insignificant, 36,000 bucks is a significant sum of money.

So we want to make sure we're doing this correctly.

So this IRA rollover idea, I think you're absolutely right.

Consolidate.

You certainly don't need the income.

Now that's just on top of your current salary and it's just going to incur higher taxes.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Deferring this for as long as you can makes a great deal of sense.

Good for you.

Again, good conclusion.

Well thought out.

The Fidelity IRA offer is something that Fidelity many other companies do it as well and it's good business for fidelity.

Fill in the blanks.

Fidelity, T, Rowe Price, Vanguard, any other company because you are coming out of one of their retirement plans, they would love for you to stay with them in some other form.

Going from a pension fund into an IRA.

Please stay with us.

We'll make it very easy.

Sign here.

It's all done.

If you wanted to consolidate as you do, likely in your best interest, they will send you a check.

I understand your concern about it coming to you.

It feels like they're writing you a check that you then have to deposit to your IRA.

Having worked in the field, you already know that that could cause significant problems.

IRA rollovers that are not done properly are fully taxable, not what you want at all.

So your concern is understandable.

But here's the easy answer.

The check is not made out to you.

Let's use Charles Schwab as an example of your IRA that you wish to add the money to.

Is that Charles Schwab, the check that they will send, indeed they'll send it to you is made out to Charles Schwab, and it's typically identified as FBO for benefit of you.

So if you wanted to cash the check, you could only if a banker messed up, but you couldn't.

It's not made out to you.

You're not allowed to cash it.

It's only made out to the custodian of the IRA that you're you are directing these funds to.

So it's very, very common these days.

Fidelity issues, the check Charles Schwab, FBO for you comes to your home.

You either send it to your IRA custodian, you drop it off at one of their offices or your financial advisors office, and it is considered by the IRS very important point.

A direct rollover.

You're saying it didn't go direct?

It came to me.

It did not come to you.

It happened to flow through you.

It didn't come to you any more than it went to the post office.

No, it sat in the post office.

It sat on your dining room table.

It got deposited directly into your new IRA.

You're going to be just fine.

Just fine.

Good for you.

Very impressed.

Let's see if we can be impressed again.

Megan, what's next?

Well, there might be a little bit of snark with this one.

It says.

I thought the whole idea of a financial advisor was they knew when to get into the stock market and when to get out.

What's the deal?

this one's too easy.

I mean, snark, snark aside, this one's too easy.

We mentioned it earlier in the show, The the the individual who got out and is now waiting for the right time to get back in.

There is there is not is not a financial advisory group.

There is not a financial advisory system.

There's not an investment program that has the capacity to operate as Nostradamus did lo those many years ago, to predict future hundreds of years in advance.

If you are talking to a financial advisor with integrity and there's a question mark, but if you're talking to a financial advisor with integrity, he or she will assure you they don't know where the market is going from the opening bell at 9:30 until the closing bell at 4:00, there may be indicators of what direction it might go, but all it takes is a little hint, a little whisper, a little smoke in the air, a little flash, a little whoa, what is going on?

And it can go completely off the rails in a blink or a little hint, a little excitement, A little.

Wow, That's pretty cool.

Why did you hear?

And it can go sky high in a blink.

These kinds of things tend to happen a lot, which is why so many people are wishful, prayerful.

There's got to be a better way.

There's got to be a way to know when to get in, exactly when to get out.

And the answer is no one knows that.

Exactly.

The key then needs to be investing.

But one word would be appropriately and intelligently, strategically, in a way that best fits your financial goals, gives you the best probabilities of success.

If if you appreciate sports, you know that in any sport a person can work incredibly hard, practice hard, do all the right things, and yet in competition, something might go awry.

A bad bounce, a bad twist, not to the Philadelphia Phillies, of course, but to everyone else out there.

It can happen.

And that that loss, so to speak, is part of the game.

And if you'll forgive me, kind of the, the the reference, the the analogy that investing has as a bit of the game and it certainly has a significant recognition of the use of probabilities under these circumstances.

This result is more probable then this result.

If you change the circumstances, those probabilities change dramatically.

If you said to me, is the stock market goi And then it's going to go back down again and then it will go back up.

I sadly have no idea what those timeframes are.

So if you're looking at cycles, probabilities and understanding those and putting those to your best use, Absolutely.

If you're looking for Thursday, we're out next Tuesday.

We're back in.

Wait until May, come back in September.

Those things are foolish.

It's just it literally is foolishness and doesn't assist you.

I'll give you two very simple examples.

If you said to me, I'm saving my money for a down payment on a house that I will need in six months, I would say your best investment is the bank.

It's not an investment.

It's wherever your money is 100% safe because it simply doesn't matter what rate of return you might get.

If the risk is that you might lose your down payment, that you very, very much need in a very specific timeframe.

The flip side of that coin, you tell me you are 25, you're putting money in your Roth IRA and you're saying you want something guaranteed.

I will shake my head and say, No, you don't, because guaranteed returns are three or four or 5% non guaranteed returns.

Those ups and downs of the market tend to average at it eight, ten, 12, 15%.

And since you are 25 and won't be touching this money for 40 or 50, 60 or 70 years seems like an eternity because it is you are best served by allowing the probabilities.

There's ups and downs of the market to produce for you very, very admirable returns over very, very many years.

I hope I helped a little bit.

I gave you a little context that you can be a little more comfortable, that you don't have to be psychic to be very successful in your investments.

I hope I helped all of you.

I hope you got a couple ideas from tonight's show.

The questions were fantastic.

Absolutely fascinating.

If you have a question that you would like to pose to us, we welcome that Gene G-E-N-E at Ask MTM dot com ask MTM A-S-K-M-T-M dot com.

We answer every single question back to you.

Our staff is fantastic and very excited to help you in any way that they are.

And depending on the question, we may be able to add that to our our agenda for a future show.

You may be the star of the show as as weeks go on.

I want to thank you again for spending your time with us.

I hope you learned enough that you were going to want to spend more time with us next week.

When we return on our next episode of More Than Money.

Good night.