And good evening.

You've got more than money.

You've got indigestion.

From now you've got the entire team here at PBS bringing you the next half an hour of financial slides, financial tools, financial strategies, financial advice, financial guidance, so that maybe, maybe we can help that smooth out that path a little bit for you recently here, that path has been snow covered for many of you throughout the country.

You've experienced snow maybe for the first time in decades.

For lots of you, you've experienced extreme cold.

I call my friends and clients down in the southern parts of our country in the southwest parts of our country and California, and they're all bundled up because, oh my goodness, it's 50 or 40.

And we've seen some of our clients in areas that it's -30 minus four.

Yeah, it gets cold.

So smoothing out the path, maybe clearing some of the snow is a better analogy for you this evening.

That is what we attempt to do.

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

You send us your emails to Jean and ask him TMZ.com.

You ask us the most interesting questions.

Far more interesting than it would be if I were just droning on and on about the stock market today was, oh, that's dreadful.

But for real people that have real financial questions, this is the opportunity to have those answered by someone with admittedly, 780 years of experience.

And there are days I feel every single bit of it.

And then there's other days I spend a little bit of time with my two year old granddaughter, and I feel young again.

I'm sure many of you can relate.

The part about spending time with my granddaughter brings me great joy, and there are occasions when on air I get a little snarky with folks who are and interestingly enough, those are some of our most popular shows here, folks, are you got a little snarky there?

That was fun to watch.

The.

Before I ask Megan for our first question, I just want to make an observation about a question that we're not reading on air because it's far too long.

In summary, it's a couple.

Married couple are both right around 70.

They've saved diligently, they've got, a little over 1,000,005 in their retirement funds.

They have a home with lots of equity, but still a mortgage and a line of credit.

And they have, two children, that have both, graduated college and, and gotten, master's degrees, graduate degrees and now are employed.

But as, mom describes it, struggling, struggling to pay their bills and, both tearing some student debt with, as, as out of her angst, no real opportunity to, to to see a way to buy a home and put down roots, that kind of thing.

A couple things jumped out at me from her description.

Number one, mom and dad paid for a college and then paid all their living expenses and grad school.

And yet both of them came out with about $60,000 of debt.

And so mom's question now is, how do we help?

It's not snark, because I appreciate your instinct of wanting to help make life easier for, children, grandchildren, you have helped so much.

I fear that you've not given your children the tools, the resilience, the grit to face challenges.

These are challenging times, without a doubt.

And that one happens every job in the federal government.

One happens to be a in a private school teacher.

Both of those were choices that they made, understanding that long term they had tremendous value.

But short term they did not pay well.

And they made that choice.

Part of me suspects they made that choice based on mom and dad have always bailed us out.

I think they're going to bail us out again.

All of that is all well and good except your savings, as substantial as they are for someone hopefully joining our triple H club.

Happy, healthy 130 years from now, both of you, you've got substantial need that will unfold over the next 30 years that your current assets are likely to meet, but also have the opportunity that are a possibility they may not meet those needs.

So my concern is the pattern that you have set.

You have sacrifice yourself in your own financial security, possibly, to assist your children in every way that you are able.

Now may be the best way you can help them is to sit with them, talk to them.

Acknowledge that they're facing challenges.

Think through creative ways, through creative ideas that they can use.

Perhaps a side hustle.

Hey, if I'm working in a private school and I'm done at 330 or 4 in the afternoon, maybe there's something I should be doing in the evening or on the weekends that will help eliminate my student debt as opposed to hey, mom, hey, dad.

So, grit is a very difficult, characteristic to, to define.

But, you know, when you see it and you also know when you don't see it, now's the time to teach them some grit.

Speaking of teaching regs, where do we start?

So I can help teach some folks how to get along a little bit better.

Sounds good.

Well, this, first email, this person's also trying to help.

This one says I appreciate all that you do to help individuals to be better positioned for life as well as financially in that regard.

Question about my church and the pastor in establishing the pastor salary.

And ended up with the pastor taking a pay cut, I would like to provide him with a gift of X dollars.

I could simply gift him these dollars.

However, since his salary is part of a charitable organizations expenses, I would like to take advantage of the QCD option in my IRA.

My thought is to make a QCD to the church treasurer, with the stipulation that they make a payment, cut a check for the same amount as my QCD to the pastor.

A couple questions can this be done legally?

Would the church need to issue a 1099 form at the end of the year?

Are there other issues that I've not thought of?

Is there another way to accomplish this, and is this just not the right thing to do in regards to the QCD?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Well, I think we've got a pattern here, don't we?

We have an entire audience that are just committed to helping.

What a beautiful thing.

What a beautiful thing.

And by the way, in my experience, 780 years, it is not insignificant.

My level of experience of dealing with thousands and thousands of you, over so very many years, as much as it seems on occasion, it seems the world is aflame.

No one agrees.

Nobody's trying to help.

Everybody's at each other's throats.

The reality is that that's just a big steaming pile of hoo ha.

The vast majority of you are wonderful and caring and compassionate and do things on a daily basis that no one will ever know about, but they're helping.

Whether it's helping children, helping pastors, helping organizations, helping, helping, and that the vast majority of Americans, 98% plus are of that kind of attitude.

And I'm gosh, I think our audience is probably 99% plus.

I'm fairly certain the folks here don't feel that way.

Stop watching rather quickly.

That's just my opinion.

This is, QCD important term that if you haven't heard it before, we need to be clear about qualified charitable distribution.

It is a, an IRS approved method of moving money from your retirement funds that you are required to take out your RMDs into a charitable organization, and you pay no tax.

The organization pays no tax because they're a nonprofit.

So they're paying no tax.

You're paying no tax.

So in very simple, simplistic terms, you have a, a $300,000 IRA.

It's your first year of taking required minimum distributions, roughly 4%.

It's roughly $12,000.

So if in this example, this gentleman said I would like to supplement the pastor's income with I'm picking a number out of thin air, 6000 of my 12,000.

Could I send it directly to the church QCD qualified charitable distribution as a result, pay no income tax on it with the instruction to the church that it be paid out to the pastor.

The answer is absolutely, absolutely.

You can do that.

The, QCD requirements say you are able to give some all of your R&D or more than your I a year R&D.

You can actually give up to something in excess of $100,000 a year, if you're so inclined.

Obviously that would take some real thought, some real planning, but you absolutely can do that.

You can do it to one organization, you can do it to multiple organizations.

So it's a very flexible, fluid, outstanding, tax advantaged way, to help support organizations that are important to you.

Generous.

Is it legal?

Sure.

It's legal.

Absolutely.

No question about it.

Will there be a 1099?

There will be a 1099 to the pastor, because as far as the church is concerned, this is adding to the pastor's comp compensation.

So that'll be part of his his 1099 or W-2.

However, they report that you will receive a letter back from the church again, my number $6,000, saying thank you for your contribution of $6,000.

You will keep that for your records.

It does not get sent in with your tax return.

But you will report or your tax professional will report.

I took $12,000 out.

6000 of it is untaxed because of a CD operation.

This is absolutely a tax advantage.

Smart way to stretch your dollars and assist in a situation that you really want to help with.

Well done.

You.

Good for you to think about that.

And for many of you who are thinking, wait a second, it's kind of early in the year.

Maybe I'm 73 for the first time, maybe RMDs for the very first time.

Maybe I'm not that happy about I. I don't really want to take the money, and I sure don't want to pay the tax.

Qualified charitable distributions might replace something you're already doing.

If you're taking 12,000 out and you look at your, contributions for last year and you find out you did give 6000 to the church, and you gave a thousand here and 500 there and five, and all of a sudden you might find out that the entire 12,000 that up till now has not been have any tax advantage to you at all.

You will pay no tax on it, and wouldn't that be lovely?

I heard that somewhere.

Meg's outstanding.

Our our our our audience.

They're so, so generous, so kind.

Where do we go next?

Our next question says my husband and I are about two years from retirement.

We've never worked with a financial advisor and don't know what to expect.

Your second opinion meeting sounds attractive to us, but we've never had a first opinion.

We're, nervous and don't know if we're prepared to meet with an advisor.

So what do we do?

Thanks.

Goodness.

I shouldn't smile because this is pretty, pretty reasonable.

I really love the phrase.

We're nervous about a second opinion meeting, but we've never had a first opinion meeting.

Well, in essence, you kind of have, because it's your opinion.

You've been doing this kind of on your own.

I, I, I understand the anxiety, I really do, it's kind of like going in for a job interview.

You don't know what questions they're going to ask.

Yeah.

You don't have a sense of what should I try?

I bring a resume.

I sent her resume.

I update her as there's a lot of, anxiety, angst.

The reality is, it will very much depend on the financial advisor to whom you're speaking.

All financial advisory firms have their own system, their own approach, their own, What, thought process about how they meet a prospective client for the very first time?

Some are very, very intense.

They will send you a questionnaire, dozens of pages, requiring you to do a tremendous amount of work, just to fill out the questionnaire.

Then you send it to them, and then they review it to see if you are, qualified to even meet with them.

Some firms have a half $1 million minimum, major, national firm now very proudly.

And I says, if you don't have $1 million, please don't even call us, some, regional firms that I've recently counseled with, have a $2 million, minimum.

So they will send out questionnaires so that you will send that back and verify that you have the required minimum assets to become a client.

That is their model.

That is their thought process.

That is their approach.

Most financial advisors my apologies.

Let me correct that.

Most financial advisors that I respect do not follow that pattern.

They invite someone to come in to have a conversation without requiring a questionnaire, without requiring any kind of upfront qualification.

Just the willingness to come in with an open mind to have a conversation.

Now, let's be clear, if if in that meeting, someone happens to bring along investment statements or income tax returns or, estate planning documents, can that be useful?

Sure, sure, it can be useful, but it's not required and there are no questions that you will be, for these types of firms, there are no questions that you will be asked that you couldn't legitimately say, gosh, I'm not sure, I don't know, I'll have to do a little homework.

Perfectly acceptable, perfectly acceptable.

90% or more of the questions.

Pretty straightforward.

If you have children, do you have grandchildren?

What do you have as an income coming in?

What do you have as expenses going out?

What are you what are some of your financial goals?

Are you retired or do you wish to be retired?

All those kinds of things, that pretty straightforward stuff and no pressure whatsoever and no reason to be anxious because you won't be embarrassed if you're dealing with a financial advisory firm with that kind of an attitude.

Now, to be fair, the financial advisory firms that require the questionnaires and have these minimum, substantial minimum investment requirements, half a million, a million, $2 million, God bless them.

That's a choice that they have made.

There are other firms that have made the choice of it.

Were not concerned about how much money you're investing.

We're concerned about who you are as a person in my, initial stages of my owning a financial advisory firm, my my litmus test, my, my rule of thumb was meeting with someone.

Are we going to work together effectively for at least 20 years?

And a lot of people would smile, but then they would get it.

They were, wait a second, this is not somebody who's interested in a quick couple bucks says, interested in providing service and ideas that will be worthy of us staying for at least 20 years.

And then things changed in our particular firm, and I'm sure in other firms as well as we added other advisors and now we have advisors who are in their 70s, 60s, 50s, 40s, 30s, 20s.

And so now the phrase is quite different.

It's not.

We're hoping to add someone who will be here at least 20 years to.

We are hoping to be advisors through the generations of your family.

So if you're the grandparents, we're hoping that we will care for your children and grandchildren.

If you're their grandchild, we're hoping that we're going to care for your parents and your grandparents as well.

So that's the litmus test that we're looking for.

And that doesn't come from a questionnaire that comes from a conversation.

So don't be nervous.

It'll be fine.

Speaking of fine, mags, it would be fine if we could answer another question.

Well, then we should definitely do that.

This one says I'm 55 years old and I have worked for Costco Wholesale for 25 years.

I love my job, and Costco has been a great company to work for.

I have 500 thousand in my 401 K and plan on working until I'm 65.

15% goes to my retirement and my goal is to reach $1 million by then.

I'm debt free with no children and my wife gets pension from the city.

Wondering who can help?

Come up with a plan to reach my goal or figure out if my plan is even feasible.

Thanks.

Gosh, I love questions like this, I really do.

It's it's hard not just to smile ear to ear.

First of all, what a great start.

Happy to be working in Joyce's company.

Enjoys his work.

Isn't it great to hear that if you don't enjoy that, that that blessing yourself?

Aren't you a little envious to be able to get up every morning and go, this is fun.

I enjoy going to work.

That's fantastic.

Number two, he wants to know, is it feasible for him for his investments in ten years or so?

Yeah, I'm looking at that.

Right.

Ten years or so to maybe.

Wouldn't it be great if they could reach $1 million?

Feasible.

It's it would be hard for you not to reach $1 million.

And here's why.

Here's why.

You already have half a million, $500,000.

That is fantastic.

Good for you.

You're still contributing to your 401 K. Now, we don't know how much you're making, so we know it's 15%.

I don't know what that is.

Dollar amount.

Let's say it's $10,000 a year.

So over the next ten years you're going to add another $100,000 or so.

But that doesn't get you to a million.

But what does get you to a million is the miracle of compounding.

It's a beautiful thing, actually, Einstein said that's the real miracle.

Not physics, not equals MC squared, but financial compounding.

And the reality is this if you were to stop making contributions today, no more money going into your 41K, no more savings and you invested your money in such a way that you could average average about 7.25% a year, not 17, not 70, certainly it's not going to work was 1 or 2.

So you can't put it into, stuffing in a mattress.

But if you could average 7.2 and there are very realistic, if not guaranteed, there may be some guaranteed programs out there as well that would make that 7.2%.

But if you are able if you are fortunate to get to, to achieve an average of 7.2% per year over the next ten years, through the miracles of compounding and the the fund formula, the rule of 72 is your money will double.

So if you add not a penny but you invest your money well, keep a close eye on it.

Get good financial advice if necessary, and average 7.2.

You're going to have a million bucks and you're going to keep adding to it.

So it's not going to be a million.

It's likely to be a million too.

It might be even a bit more than that.

If everything goes beautifully.

But the reality is it's very feasible.

You're on the right track.

Add the income from $1 million to, pick a number 40 or 50,000 bucks a year to your Social security, your wife, Social Security and your pension.

Wow.

Retirement's going to be fantastic for you, absolutely fantastic for you.

And then add to it that by the time you reach your magic age, you're actually, 35 years working for a company that you like.

And who says you have to retire.

Maybe you go part time, work three days a week, work Monday through Wednesday, and have a, a four day weekend every weekend of your life.

There's just limitless opportunities.

But what you have done is spectacular.

You should be very, very proud of what you've accomplished so far.

And there's virtually nothing that will stop you from being successful all the way through.

Well done indeed.

Do we have a chance to say well done again?

Well, I was going to say we might be switching gears a little bit with this next question.

This one says my father added his new wife to the deed and told me I'm no longer in the will.

Can I can attest to this?

Jean.

Yeah.

Don't get me started.

Goodness.

I have no idea.

Of course, I only have 780 years of experience, so this may have been before my time.

I don't know when this whole entitlement went craze, wave of entitlement started.

I don't I don't know when it started.

I don't know exactly how it started.

Hey, I deserve.

Hey.

I didn't ask to be born.

Hey, I oh, come on.

It's wearisome.

And by the way, self debilitating.

As soon as you start deciding that you're entitled to someone else paying for whatever you want.

Yeah, as as as far as I can see, your, your capacity for achieving anything of real value in your life drops off like a rock off a cliff.

My opinion?

I could be wrong.

I'm not.

Bottom line.

No one.

And by the way, this is like the height of, of of the red flag of entitlement.

No one is entitled to a, an inheritance.

No one.

And for folks who have, come through our doors and said, hey, I'm really, I'm really worried.

I don't, I don't I want to cut my spending way, way back because I want to make sure I'm leaving a legacy to my kids or grandkids and, and my response has been uniformly for ever.

The greatest legacy that you can leave your family is your role modeling, being help, healthy, happy, hopefully reaching 100, but whatever age you reach, you are happy, healthy, happy, and financially independent the entirety of your life.

So that is a legacy that will demonstrate to, your family, your children, your grandchildren, hopefully your great grandchildren.

How a a a a a reasonable person, the solid person, an accomplished person, a thoughtful person lives their life not by, making sure that somebody gets money.

Money is nice.

I I've spent my career helping people make the most of it, but not to make the most money to make the most of their money.

And in this case, this.

I'm guess I'm I'm.

I can be wrong, but I'm.

I'm guessing this is a young man asking, my father added his new wife to the deed.

Told me I'm no longer in the world.

Can I contest this?

What are you contesting?

You have no legal rights to any of this.

New wives, new spouses, new step mom, father, yet challenging.

No question about it.

Absolutely no question about it.

However, it doesn't, provide you with either a legal, ethical or moral stand that says, hey, dad, that's my money that you're giving away.

And I want to contest it.

You have no leg to stand on.

And, my guess is that you're not really used to standing on your own two feet to begin with, so it's got to come as a real shock.

It's got to come as well.

A an absolute splash of cold water in your face.

It might be the best thing your dad could have done with you.

Done for you, done for you.

Going all the way back to our very first descriptor of folks who are done and done and done and done for their kids.

And now the question is, oh, they're having some challenges.

What else can we do?

And the answer is, provide them with an opportunity to face a challenge, overcome it, and be so proud.

Take pride in the effort that it took and the success that it took and the overcoming it took, the persistence it took, the grit that it took.

You need to get some grit.

You don't need a contest.

You need to get some grit.

Speaking of grit, hopefully we've demonstrated enough of that to you that you want to have your questions answered by our team, Gene and ask mtm.com works very, very well.

We're happy to answer all your questions back to you.

Maybe you'll even see one of your questions live on air at a future show in the very least.

Over the next few weeks, you'll return to us and answer more questions from your friends and family right here on the next edition of More than one that you may not.