Good evening.

You've got more than money.

You've got Gene Dickerson, your host.

You have Megan Smell.

You're expert at and asking questions.

That forces me to answer.

So welcoming Megan back.

And of course, for the next couple of minutes, I'll do a quick, monologue for you, and then we'll turn our attention back to Megan.

Yeah, I know you'd rather see her.

I get it, I get it, for goodness sakes.

Welcome.

Indeed.

Thanks to so many of you who have sent, so many questions for us to, to, you honor us by inviting us to assist you seeking our our counsel, our advice.

It's very, very kind of you.

So much so and and so many of these have generational impacts.

Whether it's parents trying to help kids, kids trying to help parents, parents trying to help grandkids, or the entire the gestalt, which is a tremendous word.

I wish I knew what it meant.

If you look at the big picture of so many of the questions that you ask, they involve family.

And as a result, our industry, which has evolved tremendously since I began 780 years ago, the, original, financial advisors, they were called stockbrokers.

And stockbrokers were considered to be kind of the the peak of the pyramid.

There were life insurance agents.

There were real estate agents, CPAs.

There were lots of folks who gave some counsel to some piece of, a person's financial picture.

There were, literally when I began, no financial advisors.

There were no financial advisors.

There were folks who, were smart enough professionals who were smart enough to say, hey, I'm your tax advisor.

And I've studied some investments and I've studied some estate.

I can help you.

I've experienced things.

Generally speaking, these were, forgive the phrase old white guys.

Generally speaking.

And as a result, the, the advice was very uneven.

If you were fortunate enough to find somebody who truly had that kind of a background, even though they did not call themselves financial advisors, you were well served.

But over decades, we went from, gosh, no real title whatsoever for our profession to initially it was financial planners.

And, and their thrust was let's, let's project out 30 years and see where you're going and how do we make your life a bit better.

And then it went to financial advisors where, they covered a bit more.

They had a bit more background, maybe a cursory background in some tax, a cursory background, some estate planning.

And then there there was a separation where investment advisors came into play, and kind of a subset where it was all we wanted to talk about is your investments.

We have no interest in any of that other stuff.

And, and then eventually, it got kind of muddy.

The, I guess the largest organization that certifies, financial advice, CFP, certified financial planners.

I it's the largest.

It's not the only by any stretch of the imagination, lots of certifications.

Came down to financial planner.

Financial advisor.

It got to be a bit of a mismatch.

Bottom line for us, in our more than money world is that we are number one as a team.

We are a family.

And number two, the people we serve, we we we view them as family as well.

And and so often we are serving their family.

We have so many clients where we have three generations.

I don't know that we have a fourth yet, but I bet it's coming up.

Bottom line is, from our standpoint, the term family wealth advisor makes a great deal of sense.

And, I share that with you.

As as we were to a New Year family wealth advisors, where we're going.

I hope it's, compatible with where you're going as well.

Speaking of where you're going, Meg's let's let's ask a question and help get some folks going in the right direction.

Sounds good.

We definitely have a family question to start off tonight.

This one says I would like to leave the bulk of my savings to my daughter when I pass.

I'm 78 years old and I live very frugally.

I'm presently divorced.

I live on Social Security and a couple of pensions.

I presently have a couple of hundred thousand dollars in a CD term account that pays me about $850 a month in interest income.

I would prefer to leave the money for now in this account, and use the extra income from my own living expenses.

Right now, my daughter is in the medical field, has a very good income and she is very stable with her finances.

Unfortunately for her, she lives with a partner her own age, 41, who has a history of very poor credit and money management.

He has no car because of his credit and no savings.

He keeps losing jobs and going on unemployment.

She has kept him afloat for three years, paying all the bills, groceries and day to day expenses.

He never pays for rent.

He does turn his paychecks over to her when he does manage to get paid, but I want to leave something for her.

So when she's 55, she can use the money for her retirement and not use it to continue to fund things for him.

Wondering how do I leave my savings to her without him being able to touch it?

Thanks.

Oh, goodness.

Well, as, a father, not quite your age, but close.

I'm much younger in person.

Be be aware of that.

Three daughters and a granddaughter.

I understand I, your heart is full.

And you, you you are fully cognizant of the situation that your daughter is in.

We can't approve of it.

Not in any way, shape or form.

You raised a smart, Terrific.

Excellent judgment, young woman, who has done a lots of good things, and you don't want to see it wasted.

I'm with you 100%.

There are a couple of things, that that you should at least consider.

The first is certainly, certainly, counsel with a trusted, experienced estate planning attorney.

Absolutely.

Mandatory setting up your estate in such a way that you are providing protection, you're getting some insulation around the funds that you want your daughter to have from her current partner.

I'm not I'm not saying that they're not going to last, but a man can.

A man can dream.

A father can dream.

But bottom line is keeping, that, that, that insulation that, that, that nice wall around these funds, in, in the event of your passing, at the event of your passing, is, is very possible through the use of a trust.

Now, I'm going to circle back to that here in a moment.

Now, having said that, one of the, primary, ways that I would suggest to you that you protect your daughter, is to, live a very long life.

Pretty straightforward stuff.

You are 78 years old.

Happy, healthy, 100 gives you 22 more years, 22 more great years.

And then whatever happens after that kind of happens after that.

But bottom line is, she's now 41.

She'll be 63 at that point, hopefully long gone.

This guy.

But bottom line is, the longer you live, the less this is an issue.

The more that she will see, the more that she will become more competent, more educated, more informed.

On the financial side.

Which leads me to my third recommendation.

Introduce her to a financial advisor.

Introduce her to a financial advisor that you trust, one that's trustworthy experience.

I mentioned Family Wealth Advisors earlier.

One of the, historical, facts is that a thousand years ago, old white guys, that's who we that's who.

The financial advisory world, represented no longer.

Thank heavens.

Women are.

To be blunt, I think superior financial advisors in almost every respect, the, their, their ability to be intuitive, their ability, to, to to pull out of a potential client, the important information, the ability to build relationships.

Fantastic.

Not men can do it.

Of course they can do it.

Everybody can do it.

Just in my opinion, I think it might be a bit easier for women.

And in this case, your daughter might very, very well be more comfortable with a woman.

Financial advisor.

I'll just use that as an example.

Having said that, once she has her own advisor.

Now, in addition to your voice, there's a there's a second voice, another voice supporting you and another voice educating her.

Now, lots of folks listening are going.

Wait a second, Jane.

You missed the biggest, easiest part of this.

If she inherits from her dad and does not co-mingle the money with her partner, it's completely insulated.

Yes it is.

That is 100% true.

If she's aware of that, if she's been educated, if she's been supported, supported, and if she has a supportive environment, financial advisor can be very supportive at a time like that to say, let's make sure we establish an account in your name only.

Does that protect it forever?

The answer is no, because she can voluntarily co-mingle at any point.

And if she's in a relationship that she believes to be one of a loving relationship, she may choose to do that.

And there's very little we can do at that point.

Circling back to the trust, there's a tremendous amount that we can do that a trust can be constructed in such a way that you will have you have the phrase control from beyond the grave.

You can set the instructions up as to how she gets money, when she gets money, who can and cannot receive benefits from the money?

What time frames?

This money is distributed over.

Hey, she gets an income at 55 until she's 65, and then she has access to the the principle.

You can design it in any way you wish.

Which is why, again, you need an experienced, trusted estate planning attorney, one that has seen so many different variations of this theme and has seen so many different financial family dynamics that they can give you very, very good counsel as to what to include and what not to include and what not to include.

With you 100%.

I got three daughters I love more than life itself, and a granddaughter that you wouldn't think a little.

Any human being that tiny could have somebody this big wrapped around their finger.

But she does.

We love them and we want what's best for them.

So make sure you get good counsel.

If you need more assistance, please reach out.

That's what we're here for.

Oh, God bless Meg's, Fascinating question.

Goodness.

Where do we go next?

Oh, speaking of what we're here for, I think that this next question really is what we're here for.

This one says my wife and I currently have an investment advisor to assist us with our investment management.

We believe that we're tracking well for the future, but we'd like to get a second opinion regarding our plan going forward.

We're considering whether it would make sense to have a financial advisor to assist with other aspects of our strategy, including estate planning, social security, long term tax planning and other related topics.

Are there financial advisors who provide the kind of comprehensive advice that we're looking for?

Yes.

Next.

No.

I'm kidding.

Just kidding.

The answer is yes.

Now, to be blunt, as a as if I'm ever anything but, as as proud as I am of our more than money team, as proud as I am of our our, our approach, our philosophy, how we deliver exactly what you're looking for, exactly what you're looking for.

We have, fantastic financial advisors, family wealth advisors.

We have fantastic, and a tax council, tax preparation, tax planning, tax evaluation, incredible partners assisting us to help our clients on estate planning at the highest level, social security of the of of of the the most cutting edge Social Security council that you can receive Medicare counseling.

The list kind of goes on and on and on.

So, yes, I am immensely proud of the team that we have, created and crafted and assembled to do exactly what you are asking for.

Now, having said that, one of the great, joys, of, of my life literally is to know that the counsel that I'm giving you specific to you, I've always done this, have been on I've done more than 3000 television shows.

I've always spoken directly to in my mind, one person.

So the counsel I'm giving you, applies to so many people, so many places.

There was a time when, I guess my, my early TV shows might have gone about six blocks, so I knew everybody in that area, and it was easy.

And I could make those those kind of recommendations because I knew who was who.

My competitors were, who the other advisors were, who, who was and who wasn't.

Now it's national, coast to coast, border to border.

But my that's a long preamble to let you know.

There are tremendous financial advisors out there.

There are financial advisory firms that are exemplary in their ability to comprehensively serve exactly what you're looking for.

Now, sadly, there are also huge numbers.

Maybe a majority of the financial advisors, in in the country are not they're not if we're if I'm saying 60% are not, I think it's more like 80, but let's say 60% are not fully 50%.

Almost all of those are just investment advisors.

They just want give me your money, I'll invest it.

I'll get paid and go away.

That's that's basically who they are.

Some of the biggest firms in America.

If I were to name a particular company, here we go.

Yep.

Heard of them because they're on TV all the time.

They're on radio all the time.

They mail our big mailers to say, hey, we're the best because we're so big.

And they have, by the way, minimum investment, requirement now at $1 million, used to be half a million.

Now they've kept it to a million.

If you don't have a million.

Yeah, you're really not for us.

Translation.

Yeah.

All investment advisors, very, tax counsel.

Please forget it.

Many, of that huge majority, not permitted to give you tax information, not permitted to tell you what the impact will be of a particular action and which, by the way, if you are well served, you will know what the tax impact is of a particular investment, option, particular investment action before you take the act.

That's quality.

That's what these folks are looking for.

So what's fascinating to me about this is that this vast majority, are providing a fraction of what your, your need and what you're interested in.

And yet, the folks who give you full service soup to nuts counsel, that can be incredibly impactful, even if you're not talking about investments.

Charge no more the fees that you will face with these folks who are giving you a fraction of the service are the same as the fees that you would face if you get a firm that is given.

And many, many firms do give you the best and comprehensive.

So make sure make sure that you are getting exactly the advisor, the type of advisor that you need that you are seeking.

Prior to making a commitment.

Don't be led down a garden path by a fancy office or a fancy anything.

Make sure that you're getting good counsel from, folks that can give you the big picture.

I'll give you a very quick example of the big picture I met recently with one of our longstanding clients.

Wonderful gentleman, very, very bright, knows a great deal about a lot of what we do.

And we've been together a long time, so it's pretty straightforward.

Our investment returns have been, pleasing to him.

And yet, we discussed this new big, beautiful bill.

We discussed, the the new senior deductions, the opportunity to do a Roth conversion with basically no income tax.

We went.

That's crazy.

No idea.

There's a huge advantage that over the next 10 or 15, 20 years, might have tremendous impact on his kids or his grandkids and yet had nothing to do with investments.

Then we started talking about qualified charitable distributions from his required minimum distribution from his IRA.

Lost his mind.

He's a very he and his wife, very generous folks.

They give generously now they can give from their IRA and pay no tax what so ever.

These are strategies.

These come from investment advisors.

No.

They come from Family Wealth advisors who put everything together in, in one package.

I hope that helped.

I'll give you a little background about the the industry as a total in total.

And, and where you should be focused.

Meg, this is great.

It is great.

It is great.

What's next?

Our next question says, investment diversification was always stocks, bonds and cash.

I'm wondering, what is it now?

Gene?

Okay.

You know, you got to stop with these long winded.

I'm kidding.

Yeah.

This is fascinating.

Very, very interesting question.

How many of you had anyone in your family at some point being very wise, say to you, don't put all your eggs in one basket?

I think all of us, that's the down home definition of diversification.

If you have all your eggs in, the stock market and like it did back in April this year, the market goes down 20%.

You're going to lose a lot of eggs if you don't have all your eggs in the stock market.

We have some in the stock market and some elsewhere.

It used to be, as this question says, it used to be stocks, bonds and cash.

So if, you're you're trying to grow your money, you have 70% in stocks, 20% in bonds and 10% in cash.

And if you were, more senior and you wanted to generate more income, you might have 20% in the stock market, 70% in bonds, 10% in cash.

For all the diversification reasons that you can kind of put together in your own mind.

Now, having said that, goodness.

This is not your father's diversification I was going to use.

I'm not sure I'm allowed to say it on a brand on air.

So bottom line is this is diversification.

Today is not the same as it was, even five years ago, because the investment platforms that are available today did not exist five years ago.

So prior to I've used simple example prior to 5050 stocks and bonds, stocks were expected to do traditionally over a long period of time, 10% bonds were expected to do roughly 5%.

So over a long period of time, diversified you're going to average 7.5%, some years more, some years less average.

That's diversification.

But then maybe 10 or 15 years ago, they started to act more in concert.

So when stocks went down so did bonds.

So it didn't protect us very much.

And certain investment platforms became available.

That provided protection.

You could be invested in the stock market, but if it goes down you could still be, in many cases lose nothing.

And as a result, diversification, stocks, bonds, cash became a dinosaur.

And now certain things like, structured notes, buffered ETFs, gold, for example, which has been around a very long time.

Lots of folks use for diversification has taken a bigger role.

Cryptocurrency not a big fan.

Cryptocurrency not a big fan, but one that takes a bigger role.

In diversification.

Real estate takes a bigger role in diversification.

So, the key is not what goes into the recipe.

The key is what kind of meal are you hoping to make?

Because if you're, that kind of person who says, I'd like my meal to be lovely and palatable and, not terribly spicy, then great.

We know what tools to use to make that meal.

But if you like spice, if you like a lot of excitement, if you like a margarita with your dinner.

Yeah, we're going to have to use a whole different set of tools.

So diversification, the same?

Absolutely not.

What is it exactly?

It's exactly what it needs to be to meet your financial goals.

Meg's.

Maybe we can squeeze in another one.

We'll try our best.

I'll try to read fast.

This couple is just wants to know what their best option is.

It says my wife and I are big fans of your show.

We truly enjoy the practical and insightful advice that you offer.

We're currently considering a few home improvement projects and would appreciate your guidance on the best way to fund them.

We could use cash from our savings.

We have money in the bank, but this is our least preferred option because we like to have a 12 month, 12 month emergency reserve we could borrow from our HELOC.

This is a possibility, but we're weighing the risks of increasing our debt.

We could take out an unsecured loan another option though the interest rates are a concern, we could sell some investments.

This could provide the funds, but we are cautious about disrupting our long term investment strategy or lastly, we could sell a spare SUV.

We have a second vehicle, that we've barely used, and selling it would likely cover most of the project costs, but we'd love to hear your take on these options.

Our goal is to make a smart financial move that supports our plans without compromising our long term stability.

Thanks again for your show.

Well, goodness.

My suggestion, is that you contact the general manager at PBS 39 and start hosting your own show.

You are very thorough and very, conscious of the number of options you have in my my headline options are good.

Options are good.

It's it never feels great to feel like you're in a corner, like you've been backed into.

I have no choice.

I have to do this one thing that never feels great.

You've outlined five options, any one of which would work.

Any one of which that for many, many people is that that would have this this challenge.

Hey, we've got renovations.

We have to do it would say, well, a home equity line of credit.

Yeah, I can get that.

And off they go.

They don't think about what what options might be better serving their their long term their long term needs.

Now a couple things jumped out at me.

Obviously you're very knowledgeable.

You try to maintain a 12 month emergency fund, in the bank.

Most folks, yeah, six months is plenty.

Lots of folks, if they have, substantial assets, three months could be plenty.

12 months is like wearing suspenders and a belt.

I like that that's a conservative approach.

You've done well there.

Stay on that track.

That gives you a great peace of mind and confidence.

Fantastic.

Borrowing from your home.

Home equity line of credit.

He lock absolutely an option.

But of course, yeah there's going to be interest to be paid and maybe that's not in your best interest.

Unsecured loan.

No way.

Doesn't make any sense.

Interest rates are much higher than helocs.

Absolutely.

We cross that off the line.

Selling some investments might very well incur taxation if you've done as well.

Setting out your investments as you have, setting out your options.

You don't want to do that.

Selling your SUV, it's the most logical approach, creates no tax problems whatsoever.

It doesn't upset the applecart.

The only thing that I would observe, you have an SUV.

It's basically three and a half years old.

You've driven at 3000 miles and, I sure could use a second car.

So if you could just call, how exciting would that be?

Whoever gets this chance to buy this peach of a car 3000 miles in.

Just a couple, what, three and a half years?

It's going to be a steel.

Good for you.

Sell your car, stay on track.

You're doing a great job.

A great job indeed.

Speaking of a great job, you guys have done a great job.

You've done a great job staying patient with me as I drove on and on.

You've done a great job appreciating having Megan back in the fold.

That's fantastic.

And yeah, there she is.

And you give us the opportunity to serve you.

So we start with thanks.

We start with.

Thanks.

Thanks for spending part of your time with us.

Thanks for referring your friends to us, having them see our show.

Thanks for your questions.

Thanks for your support, your thoughts, your prayers.

All of that means, a tremendous amount to us.

You could be doing anything, and you're spending time with us.

That's pretty fantastic.

If you have questions that were not addressed or yours are a little different, they always are.

Send us to me.

Jean, at ask mtm.com.

Jean at ask mtm.com.

We answer every single question back to you and then we pick a few.

As you can see to air on our future shows.

Thanks again so very much.

Hopefully you learned enough that you're going to want to come back for our next edition next week of More Than Money.