Kevin Gaines (00:00):

In the 1969, James Garner classic, Support Your Local Sheriff, James’ character comes into town in the middle of a gold rush, tries to get himself a meal, complains about that it’s really not that good a food. And he goes, “This is all you get for three bucks?”

Kevin Gaines (00:18):

Cowboy next to him bumps him, points out that in the middle of dinner the prices are going from 3 to $8. And as the miner says, “That’s inflation, sometimes it gets you between the bites.” And that’s what we’re talking about today, is inflation biting you.

[Music Playing]

Stephanie McCullough (00:45):

Hey, dear listeners, we need to let you know that Kevin and Stephanie offer investment advice through Private Advisor Group, which is a federally registered investment advisor. The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations to any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you. Consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Now, let’s get on with the show.

Stephanie McCullough (01:19):

This is Take Back Retirement, the show that’s redefining retirement for women. Retirement is an old-fashioned cultural concept. We want to reclaim the word so you can make it your own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, financial planner and founder of Sofia Financial, where our mission is to reduce women’s money stress and empower them to make wise holistic decisions so they can get back to living their best lives.

Kevin Gaines is my longtime colleague with deep knowledge in the technical stuff: investments, taxes, retirement plan rules. He’s a little bit giggy and quantitative, I’m a little bit touchy-feely and qualitative. Together, through conversations and interviews, we aim to give you the information and motivation you need to move forward with confidence. We’re so glad you’re here.

Stephanie McCullough (02:08):

Coming to you semi-live from the beautiful Westlakes Office Park in suburban Philadelphia, this is Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial and American Financial Management Group. Say hello, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (02:18):

Hello, Kevin.

Stephanie McCullough (02:20):

So, dear listeners, we have been kind of cogitating on doing an inflation episode for a while because it’s been in the headlines for a while now, and we’ve been kind of struggling with how to do it and how to not make it seem like a really boring lecture in freshman economics in college. I may have told you before that economics was the only class I ever fell asleep in, in undergrad.

Stephanie McCullough (02:48):

So, how can we do it without making it deadly boring? We are going to attempt that today dear listeners. So, Kevin, to begin, can you give us a primer on inflation in under 30 seconds using no numbers?

Kevin Gaines (03:05):

I can. Well, I can give it a shot anyway, but that also feeds to your initial disclaimer, Stephanie — ah you know, in all honesty, it wasn’t us trying to do this with outgoing down technical economic rabbit holes. It has just taken Stephanie three years to get me coached not to go down the economic technical rabbit holes.

Stephanie McCullough (03:28):

And I’m still figuratively kicking him under the table.

Kevin Gaines (03:33):

Yeah, so, you know, what you’re not going to know is how many edits we went through to get this episode right.

Kevin Gaines (03:41):

So, inflation in the simplest terms is rising prices. Prices go up most of the time, all of the time. Ah! You know, If you don’t see prices going up, chances are that means we’re in the middle of a recession, which doesn’t do anybody any good anyway.

Kevin Gaines (04:00):

But, you know over time, prices naturally increase. Mostly because people get money, people demand things, so they’re going to buy things. And the more people buy things, the more prices go up.

Stephanie McCullough (04:17):

We were talking about houses. What did your parents buy their house for and when?

Kevin Gaines (04:22):

I remember 1976, we bought our, we bought our house on Crossway Court, and my parents paid somewhere between 35 and $40,000. And by the time dad retired in the mid-nineties, they sold it for, I want to say two and a quarter, $225,000, [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah right] yes. And that’s over 20 years. Not a bad return.

Stephanie McCullough (04:53):

We know this, prices go up. The price that my parents paid for my college tuition was a lot different than the price I paid for my kids’ college tuition, prices go up. So, But what does that mean? Why should you care? Why should you think about it? Not panic, but think about it, and and what does it kind of mean for your life?

Stephanie McCullough (05:13):

That means, the price is going up, is that each of your dollars next year will buy less than the same dollars did this year. And it gets more magnified if we’re looking at 10 years apart.

Stephanie McCullough (05:27):

Each dollar today buys less than the same dollar did 10 years ago. Which is why a lot of financial advisors are so focused on helping clients grow their money over time. It’s not to become wealthy and die with the most money, it’s because the cost of living goes up over time.

Kevin Gaines (05:47):

Yeah! Which is why you know when the question comes up, you kow, “How much do I need to live on in retirement? Or how much can I spend in retirement?” Well, we can say $60,000 is the number now, but that $60,000 today is not the same $60,000 10 years down the road.

Stephanie McCullough (06:08):

Yep. We hear about inflation on the news and we hear about different measures of inflation. Kevin, you have strong opinions about this. Tell us.

Kevin Gaines (06:19):

So, if you take nothing away from this episode, take away this: what you hear on the six o’clock news when they say inflation is X, ignore it. 99% chance that number does not– is not your number. So, what the government does is they take … literally, they go shopping every month. They say you know, “We have a list of goods and services.”

Stephanie McCullough (06:50):

They call it a basket.

Kevin Gaines (06:52):

That we think the average or uphold “household” is going to spend money on [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yep]. And when they come out and say, “Inflation has gone up,” whatever, they’re looking at two points. They’ll look at what it was a year ago and what it was a month ago, and then they say inflation has gone up, you know, 1%, 10%, whatever.

Kevin Gaines (07:19):

Well, the reality is all of us have different spending. So, what your inflation rate is, is going to be different than maybe even your neighbors, because you buy more food, less food, spend more on gas, less on gas, you-

Stephanie McCullough (07:39):

Different types of food to buy. Maybe your neighbor’s a vegan. Maybe you’re a meatatarian.

Kevin Gaines (07:46):

Meatatarian — almost as good of a word as carnivore, but anyway … ahm so yes, I mean everybody’s got their own inflation number. So, that’s why I say ignore what they’re saying on the six o’clock news.

Kevin Gaines (08:02):

Now, where you do pay attention to what they’re saying on the six o’clock news is because that number does lead the Federal Reserve to raise or cut interest rates, which is their way of trying to stabilize inflation [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Right]. Keep in mind the Fed doesn’t want inflation to be zero. They want a little bit of inflation.

Stephanie McCullough (08:27):

They have a target.

Kevin Gaines (08:28):

They just don’t want it to be too much or too volatile, too random. They don’t want it to be 9% one month and 2% the next month because that makes life a lot more difficult for everybody when it comes to planning.

Stephanie McCullough (08:42):

Right. So, the Federal Reserve, just to back up a little bit, is the independent government body whose job largely is to keep inflation under control, and the main tool they had to do that is interest rates.

Stephanie McCullough (08:55):

So, when every six weeks you hear on the news, “Oh, Federal Reserve is having their meeting and they’re going to make an announcement, they’re holding interest rates the same if they’re increasing, if they’re lowering, ” that is all about keeping the economy going and growing, but also keeping inflation under control.

Kevin Gaines (09:13):

And keep in mind, you know, there are literally over a hundred ways to measure inflation [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Hm hm]. Ahm! If you’re really bored, every six weeks, you can listen to the chairman of the Federal Reserve do his press conference after they make their announcement, and you’ll hear him reference very possibly three or four different ways of measuring inflation by saying, “We’re looking at this, we’re looking at that,” and what have you.

Kevin Gaines (09:42):

And the reality is there’s actually two headline inflation numbers. Because they you know, again, go referencing in the six o’clock news, “The headline inflation is up or down.” [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Right] So, what you normally hear quoted is the CPIW, which is for W’s for workers.

Stephanie McCullough (09:59):

Consumer Price Index is what CPI stands for.

Kevin Gaines (10:03):

And that measures what, you know? If you’re working, you know what are you spending money on? So, if you’re working, you’re going to be spending money on a basket of goods that we talked about earlier. However, there’s also something called CPIE, which is for retirees.

Kevin Gaines (10:20):

And the assumption is, if you’re retired, you’re going to be spending on different things and in different amounts. But you know quickly, you’re going to probably spend more on healthcare, you’re probably going to spend less on clothes, for example.

Stephanie McCullough (10:38):

Less on dry cleaning, maybe.

Kevin Gaines (10:40):

Yeah. All these little things because all of these things do feed into hmm, this CPI, this inflation basket. So, yeah, even the government can’t agree on what the right number for inflation is.

Stephanie McCullough (10:59

And the Federal Reserve, the measure that they look at is actually a third different one, right Kevin? Because what they want to pay attention to is a little bit different. Tell us about that.

Kevin Gaines (11:10):

Right! So, when we see the headline inflation, that includes two of the biggest things we spend money on: food and gas. Well, the Fed doesn’t look at that they, what they call CPI-Core or some variation thereof [Stephanie McCullough overcross: For inflation], and they exclude energy and they exclude food.

Kevin Gaines (11:31):

Now, on the surface, that sounds, that sounds insane, right? [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Yeah].

Stephanie McCullough (11:34):

We’re spending so much money on those things.

Kevin Gaines (11:37):

Exactly. And if you look at me, you know, I spend a lot on food even. But, but what the Fed is really interested in is what they call the underlying the path for inflation. And energy prices and food prices, they are actually very volatile. They can go up 10% one month, go down 15% the next month, all over the place. I mean, we all see it at the gas pump, right?

Stephanie McCullough (12:04):

They’re subject to other factors. Politics in the Middle East or you know a big freeze hitting the south or you know — there’s a lot of different things going on that’s affecting those prices specifically.

Kevin Gaines (12:16):

So, the Fed’s logic is if they react to that headline inflation number, they could theoretically be cutting and then raising interest rates every other meeting.

Stephanie McCullough (12:29):

Overreacting kind of.

Kevin Gaines (12:30):

So! Yeah. So, they’re trying to find something a little bit more stable or longer term. Because also the assumption is if the food and energy prices are a permanent thing, you know, it’ll work its way into all these other items in the basket.

Stephanie McCullough (12:50):

So, the other concept that we want to introduce you to is the idea of real interest rates versus nominal interest rates and you’ll see why this is important. So, let’s say you’re going to the bank and you see a big poster in the window that says “Special on CDs, certificates of deposit.”

Stephanie McCullough (13:11):

And the poster says you can get a five-year CD at 7% interest, and you’re thinking, “7%, that sounds really good.” That rate on the poster is the nominal interest rate. To get the real interest rate, you have to calculate it yourself by actually subtracting the inflation rate during that time.

Stephanie McCullough (13:38):

Remember, we talked about how your dollars in the future don’t buy as much as your dollars today, which is why you need to make them grow.

Kevin Gaines (13:47):

Yeah. So, Stephanie, to that, to your point is 7% may or may not be a good number for your cash to earn [Stephanie McCullough overcross: Hm hm]. If inflation is 5% for the next five years, then you’re earning in real terms, 2%, 7 minus the 5% inflation. So your, the cash that you have is growing, so it will be able to buy more things when you take the money out of the CD.

Kevin Gaines (14:17):

However, if inflation is 10% over these next five years, you are losing 3% in purchasing power. Because again, doing the math, 7% interest rate minus 10% inflation, negative three. So, when that CD comes due, that money buys less stuff than where you started.

Stephanie McCullough (14:45):

And of course, you are not going to know today what the inflation rate will be in the future. So, we’re not saying CDs are good or bad, we’re just explaining this concept of a real interest rate or a nominal interest rate. The other place this comes up is in growth in incomes, right.

Stephanie McCullough (15:00):

So, inflation goes up over time. Hopefully, people’s earnings also are going up over time. And talked you hear people talk about the real rate of growth of incomes versus the nominal. So, if I got a 2% raise, but inflation was 5%, I’m falling behind in what I can actually purchase in real terms. So, that’s again, why inflation is something you want to at least have an awareness of.

Kevin Gaines (15:32):

So, Stephanie, we’ve now explained what inflation is. Hopefully, we explained how to think of these headline numbers, whether you hear them on the news or you see them in your bank’s window. But what are the implications though, as we’re approaching retirement or in retirement? I mean, how do– where does inflation hit us?

Stephanie McCullough (15:57):

Inflation hits us in a couple different ways. One, of course is you know the more obvious one, the one we think of is expenses, right, the things we have to spend money on. So, when we’re looking at someone’s retirement plan, a plan for, “Ooh, I’m going to stop working now and start living on my income sources and my assets …” one of the biggest questions we ask people is like, “Well, how much is life costing you today? Or how much do you think it’ll cost you the year after you stop working?”

Stephanie McCullough (16:29):

But we build in inflation expectations into our projections. We know the cost of living goes up over time. So yes, we build that in. We assume, if you tell us, like Kevin said before, that life costs to $60,000 a year, we assume that in 10 years it’s going to be more than 60, right. And we build in, we bake in an inflation assumption.

Stephanie McCullough (16:53):

Not that it’s perfect and we’re not going to get it right, but it’s, it’s a fact of life that we have to deal with and think about.

Kevin Gaines (17:04):

Yeah! I mean, as, as we’ve said in the past, a lot of this is guessing — educated guessing, but it’s guessing.

Stephanie McCullough (17:13):

See Episode 7: We’re Guessing and It’s Okay.

Kevin Gaines (17:18):

So, you know, a lot of this may seem obvious to you at this point or you’re dealing with it. It’s like, “Yeah, I’m going to be spending, you know $5 on these eggs today and six months down the road, I might be spending 7 or $8, or worse on these eggs.” And  yeah, that’s going to impact your monthly budget. But there are things that we do to react. I guess that’s how I’d phrase it, Stephanie, is how we react to those prices.

Stephanie McCullough (17:54):

We react as just consumers in the, in the economy, right. That’s what you’re saying.

Kevin Gaines (17:59):

Exactly.

Kevin Gaines (18:00):

The most obvious way is what economists like to call the substitution effect. Because yes, every basic human behavior has to have some sort of scholastic term to make it sound impressive when us economists talk about this crap.

Kevin Gaines (18:20):

But really, at the end of the day substitution is yeah, just because you bought something in the past doesn’t mean you’re going to buy the same amount, the same brand, or even the exact same product. There could be a variation that you would go with that could be cheaper.

Stephanie McCullough (18:39):

Yep. Switch from beef to chicken, you switch from having meat every meal to having a couple meatless Mondays in your monthly routine, right. You were planning a long road trip and gas prices have gone up. Maybe you take a shorter road trip or maybe you do a staycation and do something in your own city, right. These are natural adjustments that people make all the time.

Kevin Gaines (19:04):

And now, the other thing to be aware of is while we’re dealing with prices going up (going back to the previous comment), the Fed’s dealing with it as well by raising interest rates. That brings an entirely new factor into the equation, would you say, Stephanie?

Stephanie McCullough (19:28):

Because interest rates affect us all in kind of two different ways, right. One is the interest we might earn on our money if we have money in the bank or in a certificate of deposit or something like that. But the other is the interest rates we pay when we borrow money. And there are different types of loans that are affected differently by changes in interest rates by the Fed.

Kevin Gaines (19:53):

Yeah! I mean, if you carry a balance on your credit card, guess what? Those interest rates go up as the Fed increases interest rates.

Stephanie McCullough (20:00):

Yes. You’ve been probably feeling that these last few years.

Kevin Gaines (20:04):

Yeah! I mean, yet another reason to make sure you pay off your credit cards every month if you can. But you know, if you’re looking to buy a house or to buy a car, not only are the prices of houses and cars going up, but the cost of the loan is going up because mortgages are no longer 2.5%, they’re now 7%. That increases your monthly bill to buy that house by a lot—

Stephanie McCullough (20:41):

Likewise, if you’re trying to sell your house and the people trying to buy it are facing 7% interest rates, they might balk at the new monthly cost, right. Which is why you’ve seen some stagnation and turnover in houses because people don’t want to give up their low interest rate mortgages and the buyers are having trouble with the high interest currently.

Kevin Gaines (21:01):

Yeah! I mean you know, it’s just one of these things, all of a sudden, it hits you a different way. And the other thing is the timing, you know. When inflation first hit us, this most recent bout of inflation hit us, we saw it in the prices. Then three, six months later, Fed’s raising interest rates. Now, we’re seeing it in the cost of debt.

Kevin Gaines (21:24):

And then further down the road you see it in the cost of your insurance because now your house is worth more, your car costs more to repair, you know healthcare goes up in price. So, all of a sudden you see these insurance companies as it’s working through the system raising your premiums because the costs are going up.

Stephanie McCullough (21:48):

Yeah, if you’re fortunate enough to have a fixed rate mortgage. The fixed part is kind of lovely because that’s one expense you’ll have for 30 years or however many years you have remaining on your loan.

Stephanie McCullough (22:01):

That’s not going to go up. That’s what the fixed rate means. That principal and interest payment has been calculated to be the same every single month for your 30 years or the term of your loan. So, that’s kind of a nice thing, right Kevin?

Kevin Gaines (22:16):

As your income goes up, the amount of money you’re spending on your mortgage, the percent, it goes down. So, instead of spending 20% of your monthly check on your mortgage if you get a raise at cost-of-living adjustment at work, now, instead of it being 20%, it’s now maybe 18%.

Stephanie McCullough (22:42):

How does inflation affect income?

Kevin Gaines (22:45):

Well, maybe good ways, maybe bad ways, maybe both ways.

Stephanie McCullough (22:52):

If you’re still working, hopefully, at your place of work, you are getting a cost-of-living adjustment year-by-year, so that that helps you keep up with inflation. If you’re no longer working or if you’re already collecting the government retirement benefit of Social Security, that … once again, we’ve already had two episodes on social security, see Episodes 15 and 82 because it’s the foundation of retirement for so many people and it’s got some amazing features like inflation adjustment.

Stephanie McCullough (23:30):

So, once you start getting your benefit, it actually goes up most years. There were a couple of years when inflation was super low and it didn’t have an adjustment. Most years, it’s going to go up.

Kevin Gaines (23:40):

Now, there’s other things where it won’t go up. So you know, we’ve discussed annuities, for example, before.

Stephanie McCullough (23:49):

See Episode 60

Kevin Gaines (23:51):

As well as if you’re lucky enough to have a pension from your old employer, these checks tend not to see any type of increase for inflation. No cost-of-living adjustment.

Stephanie McCullough (24:05):

Yup! So, if you’re getting a thousand dollars a month at age 65, you’re probably getting a thousand dollars a month at age 95.

Kevin Gaines (24:11):

And that thousand dollars is definitely going to buy a different amount of stuff for you 20 years later.

Stephanie McCullough (24:18):

Smaller amount of stuff.

Kevin Gaines (24:22):

So, that brings us to investments. Now, there’s a stereotype out there that if you’re retired, you need to be completely invested in bonds and CDs and stuff that “doesn’t go down.”

Stephanie McCullough (24:43):

Conservative stuff.

Kevin Gaines (25:18):

Well, and then there is advantages to that. Correct, you know, you’re not going to see huge swings in your balances. So, you can draw a “predictable amount” each month. Problem is, this is stuff that does not keep up with inflation very well, and that’s a problem.

Stephanie McCullough (25:09):

So, if you’re 100% in bonds and CDs and cash in the bank, as we kind of pointed out before, very often, your real rate of return is not going to be as high as the rate of price increases, the inflation in the economy.

Stephanie McCullough (25:27):

So, you’re going to fall behind, it’s going to be very hard to keep up with cost-of-living just naturally going up over time, over the course of the rest of your life, basically,right. Which, of course, we have no idea how long that will be.

Stephanie McCullough (25:42):

So, it’s important to have some kind of growth assets, stocks, other types of equities. And Kevin, how do they tend to react in times of inflation?

Kevin Gaines (25:56):

Stocks tend to like some inflation because companies’ earnings are going to go up. Why? Well, they’re able to charge more for their product, even going back to the whole real versus nominal conversation.

Kevin Gaines (26:14):

When people invest in stocks and companies release their earnings, they only ever say the nominal number. They’re saying our earnings have gone up to 5% from the previous year.

Kevin Gaines (26:26):

Now, if inflation’s sitting there at 20%, stocks don’t like that anymore than bonds do, but we’re talking you know in in a normal environment. So, stocks could help you with inflation, potententially.

Stephanie McCullough (26:42):

So, if you’re someone who’s kind of a little bit of scared of investing in the stock market, because it might go down, we want to reframe that for you a little bit. And that the “safe things” are not so safe.

Stephanie McCullough (26:59):

Whether it’s an annuity which addresses, as we talked about in that previous episode, Episode 60 — addresses some of the risks you face in retirement such as longevity. You could live a long time and downside market risk, the markets could go down, your annuity payment won’t go down.

Stephanie McCullough (27:19):

However, it doesn’t address inflation. That’s why it could be a good idea to own some stocks in retirement, because you’re going to need your nest egg, and the amount you can pull out of that nest egg in the end to grow, as long as you’re still here on the planet spending money and needing to buy things, the price of which are going up.

Kevin Gaines (27:39):

So you know, think of it this way. There’s lots of risks that we’re dealing with and there are very few options. In fact, I don’t think there are any options that has a singular purpose of addressing every risk out there.

Stephanie McCullough (28:01):

Can’t, can’t be.

Kevin Gaines (28:03):

Can’t. So, you need to have a variety of options and together, hopefully, they’re able to offset all of the risks, at least to some degree. But if you’ve got you know some gaps, then you know, there’s a couple risks that can sneak in there and hit you when you at least want it to.

Stephanie McCullough (28:27):

That’s why we always say, “Ask what is the purpose of this item, this investment, this pot of money, this financial vehicle? What am I expecting it to do for me? What risks am I expecting it to address for me?” And in what situations will it not do well?”

Stephanie McCullough (28:46):

Okay, if I’ve got an annuity payment that’s going to pay me out for the rest of my life, that’s a good thing, but it’s not going to do so well in times of inflation. Okay, I need to have something else that’s going to do well for the inflation risk. That’s going to be probably a pot of index funds invested in the stock market without getting into too much detail about that.

Stephanie McCullough (29:29):

So, Kevin, hopefully, the audience is not yet fully asleep. So, while we still have them, let’s wrap up with a couple key takeaways. Takeaway number one to me to kind of recap what we just said, savings in the bank isn’t enough when we’re talking about inflation.

Stephanie McCullough (29:31):

You need some kind of “growth assets,” something that’s going to grow over time for you so that when the cost-of-living goes up, you’re able to pull out larger amounts to maintain, hopefully, your standard of living.

Kevin Gaines (29:46):

And I would also add that inflation isn’t a hundred percent bad. As we’ve said you know, it helps some investments, you’ll see an increase in social security. It also helps on taxes because most tax brackets, when we’re paying our taxes, they’re indexed for inflation.

Stephanie McCullough (30:13):

I think another key, and this is something we talk about with all of our clients, is that if you are able to have flexibility in your spending needs in retirement, that is going to serve you well. Meaning in an ideal world, your baseline, absolute necessity expenses are relatively low and your discretionary is a little bit higher, and you could cut back if times are rough, right.

Stephanie McCullough (30:42):

So, maybe you go to the theater once a month and if other expenses are going up, you could cut back to a couple times a year without really going through much pain as one example, right. So, flexibility in your retirement budget is going to serve you well for the long-term. Also, another thing that is going to help is if you have some way to earn a little income. Yes, we know we’re talking about “retirement,” but as we’ve talked about many times and as we tried to capture in the title of this podcast: we don’t really think of retirement in the traditional way where you’re just sitting in the rocking chair watching the world go by, or you’re golfing every day.

Stephanie McCullough (31:28):

A lot of folks are walking away from their main career and reinventing themselves in some way or doing something on a part-time or more flexible basis. If there’s a way to earn some money, every dollar that’s coming into the household is a dollar of your own — you don’t have to spend, it extends the longevity of your nest egg. So, that’s again, going to be helpful, especially as prices are going up.

Kevin Gaines (31:54):

And for those of us who are living off our savings at this point, this gets back, this gets back to the need to have different investments, not be entirely dependent on annuities and bonds and CDs and this fixed income that does not keep up with inflation. You know, you do want to have some things that are going to rely on growth to generate a return because as we’ve already covered you know, that growth will benefit from inflation.

Kevin Gaines (31:30):

So, if you choose to put some money into the stock or commodity markets, they have the potential to help you stay on top of inflation. No guarantees, obviously, but at least they’re built for that environment.

Stephanie McCullough (35:48):

So, it’s not something to panic about, it’s something to expect, it is a reality. Sometimes it’s higher, sometimes it’s lower. But we hope this episode has given you a little bit more insight into the different implications and what you might do to plan for them.

Kevin Gaines (32:59):

And as a reminder, you know, the stock market can go down just as easily it can go up. It does involve risk as does the commodity markets and all of these things we’re talking about here. So please remember what we’re talking about here is we’re trying to educate you. We are not saying you’ve got to do this or you’ve got to do that. If you do have any questions, please reach out to us, but we’re just trying to enlighten everyone.

Stephanie McCullough (33:51):

Any retirement planner is going to build in the expectation of inflation over your lifetime, whether you do a calculator online or you work with the financial planner, it’s going to be a piece of the question. It’s going to be a factor in the projection. So it’s not something to panic about. It’s something to expect. It is a reality. Sometimes it’s higher, sometimes it’s lower, but we hope this episode has given you a little bit more insight into the different implications and what you might do to plan for them. Thanks so much. We’ll talk to you next time it’s goodbye from me

[Music Playing]

Stephanie McCullough (34:06):

Thanks so much, we’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (35:55):

And it’s goodbye from her.

Stephanie McCullough (34:10):

Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends, show notes and more information available at takebackretirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.

Voiceover (34:24):

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