Stephanie McCullough (00:06):

Welcome to Take Back Retirement, the show for women 50 and better, facing a financial future on their own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, and along with my fellow financial planner, Kevin Gaines, we’re going to tackle the myths and mysteries of “Retirement,” so you can make wise decisions toward a sustainable financial future.

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Through conversations and interviews, you’ll get the information and motivation you need, to move forward with confidence. And we’ll be sure to have some fun along the way. We’re so glad you’re here. Let’s dive in.

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We’ve been seeing an awful lot of headlines about recession lately, including this one.

Kevin Gaines (00:46):

A very steep recession is guaranteed if the Fed continues with its hawkish interest rate hikes in 2023.

Stephanie McCullough (00:53):

Today we’re going to dig into what you really need to know.

(01:01):

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 (01:12):

Hello, Kevin. So first of all, let’s be honest, headlines are designed to grab your attention, much like our intros, but it doesn’t necessarily convey real information.

Stephanie McCullough (01:26):

They’re trying to get your eyeballs, right? Remember, the news is all about eyeballs on advertisements. So we thought it would be worthwhile to do a little exploration to try to maybe calm some nerves and give you some practical tips about what to do if you do feel like we’re headed towards a recession.

(01:44):

But Kevin, I think a good first step is we got to define what we’re talking about. What the heck is a recession?

Kevin Gaines (01:51):

Well, it depends on who you ask. So there’s the old line of a recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. Somewhat dark, but the actual definition is even confusing, or actually it’s undefined. Most people, and we even had this conversation a few months ago, that if GDP, gross domestic product, is negative two quarters in a row, that means it’s a recession.

(02:22):

Actually, that’s not true. Recessions, at least in the US, are determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER, and they look at a whole bunch of different economic indicators. And only then, looking back, do they say, “Oh, the recession started now and it ended…” whenever they claim.

(02:44):

However, they do say, and I’m quoting, “No fixed rule about what measures contribute information to the process or how they are weighted in our decisions are announced.” Meaning much like Justice Potter Stewart said about pornography, “They know it when they see it.”

Stephanie McCullough (03:07):

I think the interesting piece about that is we don’t know whether we’re in a recession or not until after the fact, right? NBER is this organization of economic research in the US. They’re looking backwards at what has already happened in the economy and saying, “Oh, guess what? We’ve been in a recession now for a little while.”

(03:26):

So you may have heard there’s this thing called the economic cycle or the business cycle and really, if you had to suffer through economics classes like I did, see the most recent episode where I discussed this with my college classmate, Jon Hilsenrath, economics is not always exciting until you get out in the real world.

(03:42):

However, there is a cycle to things. There is growth in an economy and there is contraction in an economy. All that to say that recessions are a part of the deal, they’re a part of the cycle. We can’t go on having growth forever without some periods of contraction. And in fact, Kevin, we were having a conversation earlier, kind of like how you think about a forest fire. Is that right?

Kevin Gaines (04:10):

That’s the thing about forest fires. Yes, they’re incredibly destructive and they can cause a lot of damage and loss of life, human and otherwise, but there’s actually a cathartic purpose to it in as much as that it clears out all the dead wood, all the undergrowth, and it allows new plants and trees to come from the ground and expand and it’s a healthy mechanism.

Stephanie McCullough (04:35):

It’s a healthy mechanism and if it’s suppressed for a long period of time, bad things can happen too. So all that to say, we shouldn’t be terrified of recession and we shouldn’t want recessions to never happen. They are inevitable. They’re part of it. We can never know exactly when they’re going to hit or how badly but it is a normal part of life.

Kevin Gaines (04:54):

And if you don’t like the forest fire example, go back and watch The Godfather. And for the record, Stephanie’s shaking her head because she told me not to make this reference when we were talking about this episode ahead of time. But go back right before the Sollozzo hit and Clemenza is talking about the necessity of having mob wars every so often.

Stephanie McCullough (05:17):

To clear out kind of…

Kevin Gaines (05:18):

To clear out the bad blood, settle the old scores, and allow everybody to continue on with their life.

Stephanie McCullough (05:24):

I’m not a fan of mafia movies or boxing movies myself, but I know many people are. So hopefully some folks appreciate that reference as well.

Kevin Gaines (05:34):

Well Stephanie, let me ask you a question. Does it freaking matter if we’re officially in a recession or not?

Stephanie McCullough (05:41):

I don’t-

Kevin Gaines (05:42):

Going back to the earlier line, recession is when your neighbor loses a job and depression is when you lose yours. It’s the particular, it’s not the aggregate that necessarily will impact people’s situation. If you don’t lose your job, or in fact, if your business expands during a “recession” and it’s all good times and rainbows for you, who cares if it’s a recession in this example?

Stephanie McCullough (06:10):

Well, and that’s one of the main points that we want to make, right? The headlines are going to be the headlines. What matters to you, it’s what’s happening in your economy. What is happening to your bank account and wallet and checkbook and all that stuff, your own specific situation.

(06:29):

And there’s a couple different things we want to talk about here. Kevin, tell me about maybe what a lot of people really worry about with recession, but maybe we think isn’t that big of a deal?

Kevin Gaines (06:40):

Oh, you mean the mouse in the room?

Stephanie McCullough (06:42):

Yes.

Kevin Gaines (06:45):

The stock market, investment returns. Oh my God, we’re going to have a recession and everything’s going to go to zero and I’m going to be bankrupt in my IRA. Not so much. Yes, the stock market will go down during the recession or around the recession. It’s not necessarily axiomatic that if you have a recession you will go down, guaranteed to go down 30%, or anything like that.

(07:14):

But more importantly, the impact of your investments is not probably the big driver in your anxiety. In fact, if you’re still working and accumulating and working towards retirement, a recession or more specifically a downturn in the investment markets is actually a good thing in as much as, great, you’re now buying at lower prices and the first rule of investing is buy low, sell high.

(07:48):

So if you are still saving, a bad stock market performance doesn’t necessarily hurt you in the long run. Now let’s be honest, if you’re drawing off your savings because you are retired, then yes, the investment return number conversation is actually more important for you and it is something you may have to adjust your spending, and we’ll talk about that later.

(08:13):

But the key part is there’s more important things to talk about than investment returns, at least in my opinion.

Stephanie McCullough (08:21):

And I want to make the point too, that the investment market performance does not go in lockstep with the economic performance. The economy is not the markets. The markets are not the economy. Yes, they affect each other, of course, but the stock market tends to be forward-looking. So by the time maybe the bad news hits in the economy, the market may have already priced it in and they’re maybe adjusting to the next thing.

(08:46):

So you can’t predict when the markets are going to go up and down based on what’s happening in the economy. That’s an important thing to reinforce again and again.

Kevin Gaines (08:55):

And just one more quick point. The stock market tends, and I’m saying tends, it’s not guaranteed, but tends to bottom more in the beginning of the recession after the recession’s already started and everything, but somewhere around then it tends to bottom and start working its way up, even though the economy, in general, tends to get worse.

(09:16):

Interestingly, employment actually tends to peak just as the recession is starting. So it’s entirely possible that by the time you say, “Oh my gosh, it’s a recession,” the stock market’s already starting to work its way back up and then if you have to start tapping your savings, you’re not necessarily selling at the lows. Possible, not guaranteed.

Stephanie McCullough (09:42):

And of course, we want to remind you, once again, you’ve heard us say it before, your short-term money should not be in the markets. So when you get to the point where if you’re retired or even if maybe you’re working less and you’re pulling down some from your assets, your savings, your investments, this stuff you’re pulling from month to month shouldn’t be invested in the markets. That should not be at risk.

(10:04):

And just to reference you to a couple other episodes, in episode 29, we talked about how much cash you should have, and then in episode 42, what to do when markets go down. But let’s get to the things that affect people more in recession, Kevin. What are the things that really could hit someone?

Kevin Gaines (10:21):

Your job. I mean, quite frankly, if you stop getting your income, that’s a big issue. And in recessions, more people lose their jobs, could also force you to retire sooner and if you retire early, that’s probably a change to your plan and you’re going to have to make adjustments to your planning that you’ve been doing to account for less savings, less income, and so on. But it’s not just your income or your job, Stephanie.

Stephanie McCullough (10:56):

If your spouse loses a job, if someone in your household, a family member loses a job, perhaps that means there’s more people living on fewer incomes. Maybe you’ve got to support a family member that you weren’t before so that your expenses might go up even if your own personal income has not gone down.

(11:12):

And of course, if you’re self-employed, depending on what you do and where you’re working, your business could take a hit there. Whether it’s clients disappearing, clients being unable to pay you anymore, that certainly has an impact.

(11:27):

One of the things that we want to emphasize though, is just because there’s a headline saying, “The country is in a recession,” you really have to look carefully at the specific economic sector that you might be in, the specific region of the country, because recessions don’t hit evenly throughout.

Kevin Gaines (11:47):

Just like we’ve said before in other things, it’s not the averages, it’s the particulars. Same thing here. There could be a nationwide recession but the southeast or the northwest, for whatever variety of reasons, is untouched by it. So you may not experience one and your neighbors may not be experiencing one.

Stephanie McCullough (12:11):

Or for example, you work in healthcare, and healthcare’s booming during, I don’t know, a pandemic, for example.

Kevin Gaines (12:17):

I mean, there are industries that tend to be more recession-resistant by their nature. I mean, if you’re a doctor, chances are you’re not going to, or especially if you’re a vet, you’re not going to probably notice as much. There’s a general consensus that the pet industry tends to be recession-proof because, at least as I can testify, spending on your pets does not decrease even if your income does.

Stephanie McCullough (12:49):

So let’s get into some of the practicalities. What should you be doing if you feel like some of these negative impacts are going to hit you? And our first point is that we suggest that you increase your flexibility. Kevin, what do we mean by this?

Kevin Gaines (13:05):

What we’re really talking about is the ability to adjust on the fly, not going ahead and adjusting. So how do you do that? Lines of credit. If you own your own home and you don’t have a HELOC yet, get one.

Stephanie McCullough (13:20):

What’s a HELOC?

Kevin Gaines (13:21):

Home Equity Line Of Credit. I’m not talking about a second mortgage, I’m not talking about actually getting the money today if you don’t need it, just knowing that you have access to it, if you do. Because in the event of a recession, if banks are tightening their lending as they tend to do, it might be harder to get a HELOC when you need it. Not only may it be harder, who knows how long it’s going to take for the deal to actually close before you can access it. So get it while you can, not when you have to.

Stephanie McCullough (13:55):

And you’re more likely to be approved while you have an income.

Kevin Gaines (13:57):

Exactly.

Stephanie McCullough (13:58):

If you’re over 62 a reverse mortgage might be better and we’ll do an episode on that so you learn more about those. But I think even before lines of credit, build up your cash in the bank, just build up. We talk about emergency funds or whatever it might be. It can never hurt to have more cash and I mean cash, like a bank account, a savings account, a money market, something that’s not going to take any downturn if the market goes down. Cash in the bank.

Kevin Gaines (14:25):

Yes. I mean, the ultimate flexibility is just being able to whip out a stack of Benjamins to handle whatever comes your way. But flexibility isn’t just acquiring more debt, it’s fraying up your existing debt, i.e. pay down your credit cards, again, while you can instead of when you have to and you actually may not have the cash.

(14:53):

I mean, credit cards can be incredibly flexible, not just for buying things, but you can also take cash advances on them. Normally not a good personal financial move to do. I mean, there can be some prohibitively expensive interest rates and fees. So we’re not saying it’s an ideal situation but if it comes down to some dire situation, you do what you have to do, not what you want to do.

Stephanie McCullough (15:21):

It’s tools in your toolbox, arrows in your quiver, keeping your powder dry. All of those metaphors.

Kevin Gaines (15:27):

Yes. I mean, don’t underestimate the power of paying off debt today when you, again, this cliche’s going to get tiring, I know. Do it when you can, not when you have to.

Stephanie McCullough (15:43):

So the other thing on flexibility, and I sometimes think of this like a fire drill. You’re preparing for the crisis before the crisis, thinking about where you have budget flexibility. So we’re not saying you have to cut things right now but taking a look through your expenses and saying, “Oh gosh, we’re a two-income household. If one of our incomes goes away or get significantly cut, what could we stop spending on and still be okay? Where could we tighten our belts?”

(16:13):

So going through that exercise beforehand is super helpful and part of that, Kevin, is some of the deductions coming out of your paycheck.

Kevin Gaines (16:21):

Absolutely. We’re talking about situations where you have to make hard choices. Your 401k, as much as retirement planners, we’re going to tell you, “Oh no, you want to always make sure you contribute to your 401k. You always want to make sure you get the match.” Hey, guess what? If you’re trying to make sure you pay the mortgage, the car payment, buy groceries, the 401k may have to get put off for a while.

Stephanie McCullough (16:49):

Postponed, shall we say?

Kevin Gaines (16:52):

Those are choices you can make. And there’s always the easy ones, instead of dining out five times a week, cut it down to two or three or don’t get the Starbucks every day. I mean, people already talk about all those, but there’s certain ones that we get in our minds as like, “We can’t, this is untouchable.” Sometimes they are touchable, again, 401K contributions and other type of deferred savings plans, you can put off.

Stephanie McCullough (17:18):

So the next idea is to think about your plan B and there’s a couple of different options here. If the worry is that you might lose your job, what other employment options might you have out there? The old dust off the resume, dust off the LinkedIn profile, spiff it up a little bit. Keep in contact with your professional network.

(17:40):

If you haven’t had the need to keep in touch with people for a time, again, do it before you need it, right? Keep those contacts alive, reach out to some folks and just make sure that they remember you’re out there. Maybe even go so far as to exploring what other opportunities might be available to you.

Kevin Gaines (18:01):

And talk with other people in your company. You are probably doing this on a regular basis within the company and they’re saying, “Oh yeah, the company’s in great shape,” or, “The company’s not.” But also talk to peers in other companies. Your plan B, you may say, “Well I’ll just go to XYZ Widget Corp.” Well, talk to some people over there. It may turn out that they’re in worse situations than your company and that might not be an option for you.

(18:26):

So that’s the importance of talking to expanding your network, however, you define that, as broadly as you can just to get as much information so you don’t waste your time going after a company that’s just not going to be an option.

Stephanie McCullough (18:45):

And of course, if you’re self-employed, looking at your own sources of income, can you expand that a little bit more? Can you diversify? What other things might you consider?

(18:55):

So keeping those irons in the fire, keeping some things out there is always a good move. Now a big piece of financial expense, financial plan and security that we need to talk about, is health insurance.

(19:10):

So health insurance is often, for those with a W2 income, it’s often connected to a job. So Kevin, if someone’s a little bit worried that their job and their health insurance might go away, what are a couple steps they can take?

Kevin Gaines (19:23):

Step one, call your doctor, get your checkup now. This isn’t a novel idea, there’s actually research showing that health consumption goes up as recessions approach because people traditionally get nervous about their employment and they want to get the stuff done and out of the way.

(19:41):

So definitely look at that, but also take the time to understand what your options are if you do lose your existing health insurance. Learn about the healthcare marketplace if you haven’t really looked into it. Understand what COBRA is.

Stephanie McCullough (19:58):

Do we know what COBRA stands for? Continuation Of Benefits, something, something.

Kevin Gaines (20:02):

Yeah, I don’t know what the…

Stephanie McCullough (20:04):

But basically, it’s if you lose a job or leave an employer, you have the option to continue the health insurance for 18 months usually but you have to pay the full price. So understanding what that looks like in your situation.

Kevin Gaines (20:18):

And if you’re older, understand how the Medicare rules work. If you lose your job, you may have to sign up for Medicare immediately if it’s been deferred. You don’t want to get caught unaware of that and miss that window because that comes with all sorts of complications. Refer to our Medicare episode in which we pontificated about that.

(20:42):

Okay, so these options are all well and good, but what happens if all of this is not enough and you got to tap the assets that you probably don’t want to normally be tapping. What are the break the glass options available to you? Stephanie, what are you thinking is probably some of the things we could be looking at here?

Stephanie McCullough (21:06):

Well, I think the first step is to really take a big picture, look at all the stuff you have. What are the various resources that you could call upon? And then you want to make sure you understand the rules, the implications, and honestly, the costs of tapping each one of them.

(21:24):

So we talked about this already but the first place you ideally want to go is your pot of cash, your money market, your savings, your banking checking accounts. What have you got there? And maybe you’ve got some CDs that have a time period on them and if you need to sell them early and get cash out, just understanding that usually, it’s not very much of a penalty, but understanding what that is.

(21:49):

Maybe you listened to us last year and bought some I bonds, right? Understanding what the implications would be of using those assets. So I think that usually is where I would start. And then, as we already talked about, looking at credit, which means borrowing money. Looking at your lines of credit, home equity line, credit cards if need be.

Kevin Gaines (22:11):

I was going to say, cash advances off credit cards. We’re talking about the rainy day stuff and guess what? It’s raining.

Stephanie McCullough (22:20):

If you’re in this situation. I think probably the next place I’d look is do you have any investments that are outside of a retirement plan? Maybe you’ve got an old mutual fund or you’ve got some stocks and bonds just sitting at a regular old account and then your cost of using those might be some taxes. Maybe you’ve got to pay some capital gains on that and honestly the opportunity cost of what they might have grown to if you hadn’t needed them.

(22:48):

But also we want to take down any shame that might be happening here. I know a lot of people say, “But I was saving that for the future.” Well, this is the future and today you are very happy that you set aside those assets and that you’ve got them to work with.

(23:05):

So investments and then, Kevin, the next step might be your favorite area, retirement plans.

Kevin Gaines (23:11):

My wheelhouse. So first of all, understand where your retirement assets are. There is IRAs, we’re talking IRAs versus like your workplace retirement plan, 401k, 403B, be something like that. There are different rules for each when it comes to the early withdrawal penalty. So we’re talking, if you’re under 59½, there’s this 10% penalty for taking out the money early unless you meet certain situations.

(23:43):

And some of those situations apply to both accounts, some only apply to one, and some don’t even exist. I say this, there’s confusion with something called hardship withdrawal from your 401k, from your retirement plan. All that means is that you’re allowed to withdraw money from your account for that purpose. It doesn’t exempt you from the 10% penalty. That’s probably one of the biggest misconceptions with the 10% penalty so excuse me for taking that quick little aside.

(24:17):

Now, yes, understand what can be subject to that 10% rule. Now if you’re over 59½, guess what? You don’t have to worry about it. You can just take the money out. You are going to have to pay income tax, but you’re not going to have to pay that 10% penalty. But if you’re under 59½, you will. Look first at your Roth accounts. Now remember, the money you put into the Roth-

Stephanie McCullough (24:41):

IRA.

Kevin Gaines (24:42):

-you can always take out and it’s not going to have a penalty. It’s not going to have taxes due on it. When they talk about any taxes or penalties associated with Roth retirement accounts, it always applies to the growth, not the actual contributions. So you have this cushion, if you will, of money you can take out and not have to worry about the IRS.

Stephanie McCullough (25:11):

Please see episode 20 on Roth IRAs. Kevin, does this also apply to Roth 401Ks?

Kevin Gaines (25:17):

To a point, the rules are slightly different. But the other problem with Roth 401Ks is just because the IRS allows you access to the money, your plan may not. Again, one of these misconceptions with these retirement plans is just because the IRS says you can do it, the plan is the law of the land.

Stephanie McCullough (25:42):

So your employer plan document rules on these things.

Kevin Gaines (25:46):

Correct and it may say you cannot access the money, you cannot have a 401K loan. They may have that in the options as well. So yes, not just enough to understand the IRS rules, you do need to understand your actual plan’s rules to know stuff you can and cannot do.

Stephanie McCullough (26:06):

So that’s a good point. If we’re going through this exercise, and again, it’s a fire drill. Hopefully, it’s before a crisis. You’re looking through all of your different assets and understanding the implications of tapping them. What you want to look for if you do have a workplace retirement plan is the summary plan description, which hopefully in somewhat plain English explains these rules to you.

Kevin Gaines (26:28):

And if you’re with a big enough company, you have an HR department and hopefully there’s one or two people there that actually know what’s going on.

(26:34):

So if you have somebody you can go to, ask, and chances are you’re not the first person asking this question or you won’t be the last.

Stephanie McCullough (26:42):

That’s for sure. So you mentioned withdrawals and then you made reference to loans. Talk to us about loans from a retirement plan, say a 401K.

Kevin Gaines (26:52):

Right, so there’s a provision. The IRS has said, you can borrow money against your 401K, 403B, your workplace retirement account. Loans do not exist for IRAs. I just said the rules are different for these plans. There’s another one, you can take a loan against your retirement plan.

(27:04):

And it’s actually a fairly good loan in as much as you can borrow the money, you don’t have to provide a reason, you don’t have to provide income or any of… You don’t have to qualify for a loan like you would if you went to the bank. And the interest that you pay, and you do have to pay interest, goes into your account. You actually are getting a little bit of growth on that money you buy, so to speak. I mean, it’s your own money but it is going up.

(29:44):

Problem with 401K loans though is they have to be repaid if you’re no longer making payments. Why would you no longer be making payments? You don’t have a job. If you get laid off, this loan is going to come due and you only have a very limited window in which to pay it back otherwise it counts as taxable income and subject to the 10% penalty.

(28:16):

Now again, we’re talking break-the-glass situations, that still might be okay with you that you have to pay the penalties and the taxes because of the situation you’re in. But be aware, this definitely comes with some costs if your situation gets worse.

Stephanie McCullough (28:37):

So it’s not your first resort. But Kevin, there’s another type of retirement-ish plan that we want to briefly mention. Recognizing that we went into it in detail in episode 27, HSAs or Health Savings Accounts. Tell us briefly about those.

Kevin Gaines (28:50):

So health savings accounts. You have been saving for your healthcare expenses in retirement by putting money away in this plan and we talked about this in the episode. You are allowed to access these dollars whenever you want. They’re not subject to that 59½ rule like IRAs and 401Ks are. So as long as you have a qualified medical expense, you can always take money out of these HSAs.

Stephanie McCullough (29:16):

As long as you have medical expenses.

Kevin Gaines (29:18):

As long as you have medical expenses. And what the hell? Again, if the situation is dire enough, you can still take the money out. You have to pay taxes and penalties, but you can just take that money back out if you need it for mortgage or other… Fill in the blank. So it’s still a source of cash, not a very good source of cash, but it is a source of cash.

Stephanie McCullough (29:43):

So one other thing I want to mention is possibly, life insurance. So if you’ve got a life insurance policy that is not a term policy. There’s two basic types of life insurance, temporary, called term insurance, and permanent, which has a bunch of different names. But if you have a permanent life insurance policy, it is required to build up a cash value in it. Different types of policies have different ways that all works, but it’s worth looking.

(30:12):

Hey, that life insurance policy I have, does it have any cash value in it? And you can always call the 800 number on the statement and say, “Hey, how does this work if I were to need to take some money out?” Sometimes withdrawal, sometimes loan. Again, too detailed to get into here, but that might be another source.

Kevin Gaines (30:30):

And probably finally, I would say, if you’re 62 or older and in some situations, maybe even 60, you can access social security benefits early. Again, this is going to be a whole… Social security could be a whole series of episodes in our podcast, but one of the options is you can start collecting as early as 62 or 60 in some situations, and at least that would provide some income.

(30:58):

Yes, it may cause problems with your overall retirement plan, but again, you do what you have to do when you have to do it. So don’t overlook that option.

Stephanie McCullough (31:11):

And as long as we’re talking about government benefits, we didn’t mention unemployment. Understanding what your unemployment eligibility is and what the benefits are, how long they go. That’s a good piece of it as well.

(31:25):

So in summary, what we’d like you to mostly take away is don’t panic based on the headlines. Take a look at your own personal situation and the situation of those in your household and if you’re getting nervous, start to take some action today. Build up that cash cushion.

Kevin Gaines (31:45):

In a word, flexibility. A lot of these things we were talking about, ultimately could be summed up as being flexible. Allowing yourself, creating yourself room to pivot as the situation develops. Decrease your loan payments, increase your cash, acquire lines of credit that you can tap, understand the rules around your assets and how you can get money out of them and attempt to minimize the costs.

Stephanie McCullough (32:22):

So in a word, do the fire drill, go through the exercise. Do it with your household, with your family, with your financial planner, or heck, with your money buddy, if you don’t have someone else to talk about your money stuff with. It really is valuable to have somebody who’s not going to judge you and not going to put any shoulds on you. Who’s just going to listen with an empathetic ear and hopefully you can hold each other accountable towards doing these things which aren’t necessarily fun, but they’re going to hold you in good stead if and when a crisis occurs.

Kevin Gaines (32:56):

PS. We just went through a huge crisis just a couple years ago with Covid. Think back to what you were saying then saying, “Had it gotten worse, I wonder if I could have done this?” Or, “Oh man, I wish I would’ve remembered that I could have done that in this situation.”

(33:16):

Now that was a really condensed period for many of us financially but just think back to that. This is not the first time you or somebody has been through this situation.

Stephanie McCullough (33:28):

We hope this has been helpful to you. Thanks so much for being with us. We’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (33:34):

And it’s goodbye from her.

Stephanie McCullough (33:39):

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.

Disclaimer (33:53):

Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Private Advisor Group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material, are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice, or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor, prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.