A Retirement Burden for Gen X
by SGL Financial
Our 2 Cents – Episode #141
A Retirement Burden for Gen X
Money habits tend to differ with each generation, and it seems Gen X is having a more difficult time planning for retirement than their elders. Steve and Gabriel are breaking down some retirement statistics about Gen X, talking about the debt ceiling bill, and much more on Our 2 Cents.
- Debt Crisis Averted:
- A quick rundown of the bill that was signed by President Biden.
- The concessions made by both sides to get the votes needed.
- A Retirement Burden for Gen X:
- With retirement on the horizon, 46% of Gen Xers say they won’t have enough savings to be comfortable. What steps can they take now?
- Why the majority of Gen X may work in retirement.
- Saving with no strategy? Why Gen Xers need to start creating a retirement plan now.
- Credit Report Complaints:
- Complaints sharply rose against credit reporting agencies from 2021 to 2022.
- What you should do to spot incorrect information on your credit report, and file a complaint if you find something wrong.
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Podcast Transcript
Announcer: You are listening to Our 2 Cents with the team from SGL Financial, building wealth for life. Steve Lewit is the President of SGL Financial, and Gabriel Lewit is the CEO. They’re here to discuss all the latest in financial news, trends, strategies, and more.
Gabriel Lewit: Good morning, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. You’ve got Gabriel and Steve here for the show today. Welcome to Our 2 Cents.
Steve Lewit: Welcome, and I hope you’re enjoying this… I’m basking in this beautiful weather.
Gabriel Lewit: You do have the sun behind your back.
Steve Lewit: Right behind me.
Gabriel Lewit: You’re aglow today.
Steve Lewit: I can see the reflection of the green in the glass in our conference room here or where we’re recording, and it’s just a glorious day.
Gabriel Lewit: You mean our podcast recording booth?
Steve Lewit: Oh. Yeah, you could call it that.
Gabriel Lewit: Our broadcast studio?
Steve Lewit: Our broadcast studio.
Gabriel Lewit: That sounds a little bit more impressive, dad.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: You have to really sell it a little bit there.
Steve Lewit: Okay, folks. We’re in our broadcasting studio.
Gabriel Lewit: There you go.
Steve Lewit: Here at 1130 on the first floor. It takes up the whole floor.
Gabriel Lewit: It is 8:45 in the morning, actually.
Steve Lewit: It is. It is. Well, we hope you’re enjoying yourself and having a great summer. And Gabriel has some great stuff for us today. I’m going to let him take the lead, as always.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, of course, of course. Well, I don’t know about you folks, but allergies are driving me nuts. Are you having any symptoms there, Mr. Steve?
Steve Lewit: Today is a good day, but my eyes have been itchy, itchy and my throat has been scratchy, scratchy.
Gabriel Lewit: Sneezy, sneezy.
Steve Lewit: I don’t sneeze.
Gabriel Lewit: I’ve been sneezy, sneezy.
Steve Lewit: Oh, you’ve been sneezy, sneezy?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Well, grab a napkin here.
Gabriel Lewit: Did you know that the other night I was looking outside over my yard, and my daughter or my son, I can’t remember which, is like, “Dad, look. It’s snowing.”
Steve Lewit: Oh, yeah. What does that all look?
Gabriel Lewit: And I took a picture of it and I look out, I turn the other way, and there’s so much white pollen just floating through the air, it really did look like it was snowing.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: And I took a picture of it. It was kind of cool, but also it goes to show it’s bad allergy season.
Steve Lewit: Kind of weird, actually, yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: And apparently, there’s smoke all over the northeastern part of the country.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: What a time to breathe the air.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. But it’s good to breathe.
Gabriel Lewit: It sucks.
Steve Lewit: Would you agree?
Gabriel Lewit: I think that’s a very good thing.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. So folks, don’t forget breathing even though you might have allergies.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So we’ve got a good show lined up for you today. We’re going to start off with just a quick comment actually, from a client of ours on our last podcast. And we were talking a little bit on the last show about ways to kind of save costs on energy with LED bulbs.
Steve Lewit: Oh, we talked about that.
Gabriel Lewit: We did.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. And he was kind enough to send over a nice tip. He says, which I had forgotten about, if you log in, if you’re a ComEd customer, and you log into ComEd, there’s apparently basically a whole store in there of heavily discounted or rebated energy saving appliances, light bulbs. What’s on the list here? We’ve got home products, thermostat rebates, heating and cooling discounts.
Steve Lewit: On their website.
Gabriel Lewit: On their website, yeah.
Steve Lewit: I don’t know that.
Gabriel Lewit: When you log into your ComEd account, you’ve got to go to rebates and discounts.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Now, I have not independently vetted that these are cheaper or better rates than anywhere else, full disclosure.
Steve Lewit: Right.
Gabriel Lewit: But I did click in there and poke around a bit. I said, “Oh, this is pretty cool.” I just thought we’d pass that resource along.
Steve Lewit: Nice.
Gabriel Lewit: And thank you, Roland, was who provided that input for us.
Steve Lewit: Thank you. Thank you, Roland.
Gabriel Lewit: And yeah, maybe you’ll find some sweet deals in there, folks.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: So go ahead and check it on out.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. They should know. They’re ComEd.
Gabriel Lewit: Well…
Steve Lewit: Maybe they should know or shouldn’t know. I don’t know, maybe. I don’t know.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s interesting. I did get, from NY Corp., I got a new furnace and I got a small rebate for it being more energy efficient.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. You can pick up a few bucks that way.
Gabriel Lewit: It didn’t offset the cost of the new furnace by much.
Steve Lewit: Not in the least.
Gabriel Lewit: This was, of course, a few months ago, but I finally got my rebate check the other day. So, yeah. So always keep an eye out for those types of things.
Okay, well let’s move on here. We’ve got some important news, which if you hadn’t been paying attention to the media, the news website for pretty much the last month, all anybody was ever talking about, which I was getting quite sick of, was the debt ceiling.
Steve Lewit: Well, and the reason it… Look, that was a very dangerous abyss.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we know what the news loves to hone in on, right?
Steve Lewit: Well, the news is… They always say if it’s blood, it’s in the news.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, yeah.
Steve Lewit: Lead with blood or lead with…
Gabriel Lewit: Negative things.
Steve Lewit: Negative things, yeah, things like that.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s always something negative, right.
Steve Lewit: And this was a negative thing, but this was an important negative thing because it was real. A lot of negative things you hear about aren’t that real or aren’t really that prevalent. But this was a point. We were at the edge of a cliff, and had we gone over that cliff and they didn’t get it done, we’re in waters that nobody knows about.
Gabriel Lewit: It would’ve been very bad, yeah.
Steve Lewit: We don’t know what would’ve happened. So I give credit to both the Dems and the Pubs there to get it done. Schumer and McCarthy, I think they did a great job. Biden, I thought did a great job. They finally agreed, which is what you have to do in politics. And whether you like them or dislike them or whatever, they got the job done.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, and that’s part of what we had anticipated and most people had anticipated that one way or the other, they would hammer that out because the ramifications of not doing so would’ve been quite onerous. And so, I think the summary here is that it got passed by the House, passed by the Senate. Bill… Bill Biden, Joe Biden, I don’t know what I was thinking.
Steve Lewit: Bill Clinton?
Gabriel Lewit: Bill Biden?
Steve Lewit: Bill Biden. Our new president, Bill Biden.
Gabriel Lewit: Bill Biden, yes. No, yeah. Joe did sign, it was June 3rd, I think on Saturday, that bill.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: And we have no longer a crisis.
Steve Lewit: Well, the nice part about-
Gabriel Lewit: At least for two years.
Steve Lewit: Well, the nice part about this bill is that it is two years, so it goes past the next election.
Gabriel Lewit: Yep.
Steve Lewit: So that doesn’t become a part of the election, which it shouldn’t be. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And so there are a couple concessions and little nuances to this deal that both sides were hammering back and forth. We’ll just give you a tiny little tidbit of this in case you’re curious. But we’ve got, let’s see, this centerpiece here says it’ll hold spending flat for 2024 and imposes new limits for 2025 without touching Social Security, Medicare, or the military. And in exchange for that, the nation’s borrowing limit is boosted until January, 2025.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. So both sides had to deal with their right wing and left wings, the hardliners.
Gabriel Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Steve Lewit: And I thought they did a great job of saying, “Look, you can’t have it your way. We’re not going to go all out either way. We have to compromise on this.” And they got it done.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, and there was another piece in here that said work requirements to qualify for food assistance was going to increase.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. That wasn’t super popular on the far left. Passing the debt ceiling apparently wasn’t really popular on the far right.
Steve Lewit: Probably on the far right. They didn’t want to pass it.
Gabriel Lewit: Which is kind of crazy.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. But again, they did get the job done. And it has a 3% increase in defense spending for the fiscal year 2024.
Steve Lewit: Badly needed.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Just look at the scenario that’s going on right now, tons of old ammunition, everything’s getting depleted. You just don’t know what’s going to happen with the Ukraine/Russia war. It’s important to be prepared.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: And so, I think that’s an area you definitely wouldn’t have wanted to cut right now, but only a 1% increase in defense spending in 2025. Okay.
Steve Lewit: That’s right. So it’s all good news in my mind and in everybody’s mind. I think there are things you like and things you don’t like, but whatever it is, it’s better than having default. And look at the response in the stock markets.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, the market came up a little bit. It’s still down, what, 10% from the high there?
Gabriel Lewit: 10% or 11% from it’s high of… It’s funny, because I was reading an article in preparing for the show and one of them was like, “Americans should be happy. It looks like we’re at the start of a new bull market.” It’s like, “I don’t know if we’ll go that far just yet.” Okay.
Steve Lewit: I don’t think that.
Gabriel Lewit: I thought that was a very optimistic spin.
Steve Lewit: Quite.
Gabriel Lewit: And it kind of implied, “Hey, things are looking good.” Well, we’re still down 10% from…
Steve Lewit: Our prior highs.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So still feeling that pinch a little bit for folks invested in the S&P 500.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. And not to go off on too big of a tangent, but the economic data on unemployment and inflation still indicating to economists like me that we could have a mild recession coming into the end of the year. But the market could go up in a recession.
Gabriel Lewit: Right.
Steve Lewit: So we don’t know. But it’s not all roses, the way they paint it.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s true. Yep. So we didn’t want to say too much more about that, just wanted to give you, our listeners, a little quick update on the debt ceiling in case you hadn’t heard the news or was wondering what the resolution to that was. But chances are, we’ll be revisiting this topic in January of 2025.
Steve Lewit: ’25, we’ll be here.
Gabriel Lewit: So we’ve got that on the agenda.
Steve Lewit: Already, right.
Gabriel Lewit: Thinking ahead for a couple of years.
Steve Lewit: Everything’s mapped out. And we can probably say exactly the same thing we’re saying now in 2025.
Gabriel Lewit: Pretty much. Well, there is discussions, should this really become this political football that it’s become? Or should they make negotiations happen under different premises?
Steve Lewit: Well, there is an argument for its unconstitutionality, which was an alternative that Biden could have taken, but that would have been disaster itself. But why have a debt ceiling if you keep raising it?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, yeah.
Steve Lewit: Okay? We won’t go there today.
Gabriel Lewit: Different topic, different day.
Steve Lewit: Okay. I got your vibes that you didn’t want to go there.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, no. It’s not that it’s not interesting.
Steve Lewit: You have another agenda.
Gabriel Lewit: We have an agenda.
Steve Lewit: I know, I know.
Gabriel Lewit: We must follow.
Steve Lewit: I said I didn’t want to go too far off on a tangent.
Gabriel Lewit: Our listeners were anxious for the previews that we gave them just a few minutes ago.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, they were.
Gabriel Lewit: All right.
Steve Lewit: I could feel it.
Gabriel Lewit: You could hear them cheering, right?
Steve Lewit: I could hear their excitement. “Go on, Gabriel.”
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, okay.
Steve Lewit: “Go Gabriel, go Gabriel.”
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we wanted to dive into some new data, some new statistics out here. I know you were excited about talking about this too, because you spent about 10 minutes Googling generational names.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Here’s what I mean, folks. There’s a new study out about Gen Xers that we want to give you some data points here. The title here is that, Dude, Gen Xers are Totally Unprepared for Retirement, Survey Finds.
Steve Lewit: All right. So let’s clear this up, because I always get it confused.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: And I know you do, too.
Gabriel Lewit: I knew all of this, obviously. I knew it down to the year of every generation.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: I knew nicknames.
Steve Lewit: You had it.
Gabriel Lewit: I didn’t have to Google this.
Steve Lewit: No.
Gabriel Lewit: We did it for you, Steve.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I know, just for me.
Gabriel Lewit: Just for you.
Steve Lewit: Just for me and just for Katie. She knew it all, too. But anyway, Gen Xers, rather than give the dates of their birth, Gen Xers are people that are 43-58.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: And they are called the Forgotten or Lost Generation.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. If you Google this, it says they’re known also as the Lost or the Invisible or Forgotten Generation.
Steve Lewit: Right.
Gabriel Lewit: Which sounds terrible.
Steve Lewit: Which is awful.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. I don’t know who gave that name. Folks, don’t get offended. I didn’t come up with that name.
Steve Lewit: No.
Gabriel Lewit: Google told us that.
Steve Lewit: That is correct. And Millennials, see, I had this confused. Millennials are 27-42.
Gabriel Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Steve Lewit: So you are and Katie is a Millennial.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I think… So, Producer Katie here, I believe, is a Millennial-Millennial. I am an elder Millennial.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Officially, elder because I’m on the elder end of that range. That’s an official title as well. I didn’t make that up.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. And we didn’t get a name for… I don’t know what Millennials are known for. I can give you my opinion, but we won’t go there. And Boomers, I’m on the leading edge of Boomers 59-77. And this is horrible. This is real. I don’t like this at all. People over 78 are known as the Silent Generation.
Gabriel Lewit: Yep, that’s true.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Is it true?
Gabriel Lewit: You’re not very…
Steve Lewit: Is it true? They’re all silent?
Gabriel Lewit: I said it’s true. That’s what they’re known as. I don’t think they’re that silent.
Steve Lewit: No. It’s like why are they the Silent Generation then?
Gabriel Lewit: So the nicknames though, however, are Gen X is generally referred to as Gen X, but Lost, Invisible, Forgotten Generation. You’ve got Gen Y, which generally isn’t called Gen Y, is called Millennials or elder Millennials. And then, you have Gen Z, which I do believe is typically called Gen Z.
Steve Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Gabriel Lewit: And that’s ages 10 through 26.
Steve Lewit: Right.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: So your sister and brother are Gen Zs.
Gabriel Lewit: My younger sister and brother are Gen Zs, yeah.
Steve Lewit: Younger sister and brothers are Gen Zs. And I thought they were Millennials.
Gabriel Lewit: They are not Millennials.
Steve Lewit: They are not millennials.
Gabriel Lewit: Nope.
Steve Lewit: And so, folks, each generation has a different way of thinking. It’s really, really interesting. So Gabriel and I, we visit with clients and we get all these different clients and their kids and sometimes their kids. And we get to experience these generations, and they all think differently.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. They very much do. It is kind of case in point, a story I’ll share here. My mom is in the, I guess, she’s very young, but she’s in the Silent Generation. Okay? She’s, I think-
Steve Lewit: Your mother is not silent.
Gabriel Lewit: No.
Steve Lewit: I can vouch for your mother.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Anyways. And then, my son, actually, I don’t even know. Producer Katie, maybe you can Google this while we’re talking. Is there yet a name for people under 10?
Steve Lewit: I bet there is.
Gabriel Lewit: Maybe?
Steve Lewit: There’s got to be.
Gabriel Lewit: What’s after Z? ZZ? ZA?
Steve Lewit: Alpha.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh. In or after 2010, Generation Alpha. Is that saying that? I hadn’t heard that before.
Steve Lewit: Wow.
Gabriel Lewit: I just learned something new here today, folks.
Steve Lewit: How did it roll?
Gabriel Lewit: I think it’ll go to Alpha, Beta, Gamma, whatever, probably after that.
Steve Lewit: They had to start a new alphabet.
Gabriel Lewit: A new alphabet.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Interesting. Oh, well that’s cool. Well anyways, so yeah, my Gen Alpha son, who’s seven is… This kid, just the way he navigates around my iPhone, iPad, computers.
Steve Lewit: He’s like an Alpha dog.
Gabriel Lewit: He’s just flying around, now that he knows how to read.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: He can read and write now.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: So, he’s Googling stuff, YouTube-ing stuff. It’s like, “Wow. This is pretty crazy, how different they are in this kind of generation than some older generations.”
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: And even how that’s going to impact how he thinks later on and how he approaches the world.
Steve Lewit: Especially about money. The Silent Generation, or the generation there, the war dogs, who come through the War and the Depression people. And they are, for the most part, extremely frugal people. They don’t trust. They watch every dollar, every nickel they spend. You know, Gabriel. We have clients, older clients, that have $3 million in investments and they won’t spend more than $35,000 a year because they think they’re going to run out of money or there’s going to be a depression in a couple months.
Gabriel Lewit: Depression Era mindset. Yep.
Steve Lewit: And then, you get the Millennials, which I thought were Gen Xers, but Millennials 27-42, and I hate to say this, but they don’t want to work.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, yeah.
Steve Lewit: I’m making a very broad statement, of course.
Gabriel Lewit: I think some of them want to work.
Steve Lewit: Some of them want to work.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: But how many people have we interviewed, they just don’t want to put the time in. It’s like, Oh.”
Gabriel Lewit: It’s definitely more of a theme for the younger generations here. But back to our really what prompted us to research the names of all these generations again is this topic here about Gen X feeling very unprepared for retirement. And so, we thought we’d share some of these data points with you and talk a little bit about them. We like sharing research articles on the show here, give you current up-to-date data that’s being reported.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. So again, that’s ages 43-58.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes.
Steve Lewit: So a lot of you out there have children that are 43-58, so this is them.
Gabriel Lewit: And many of you out there are 43-58 also.
Steve Lewit: And this is you.
Gabriel Lewit: And that’s you. Okay. So the first part here, less confidence in their financial future. And this was a poll of actually a few thousand people in Gen X, so a pretty good sample size here.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: 46% reported that they won’t have enough savings to be comfortable.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, just think about that.
Gabriel Lewit: Half.
Steve Lewit: Half.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, half.
Steve Lewit: Half of this population is saying, “We’re not prepared.”
Gabriel Lewit: And many of them are starting to see the retirement date on the horizon.
Steve Lewit: The R word.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay?
Steve Lewit: Mm-hmm.
Gabriel Lewit: Then 35% reported that they have less than $10,000 saved. Okay? And then, 18% have nothing saved. So that’s again, 35+18 means we have 53% of Gen Xers have less than $10,000 or nothing saved for retirement.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, it’s incredible. But there’s a reason, too. It’s not only the generation, but when you’re 43-58, you’re just getting through all of the big expenses. Your kids are just maybe getting out of college. You’ve bought your house, you’re paying it down. You have health expenses. It’s a very big time of expenses, so it’s very hard to save up until that time. And what most people do, what I hope this generation does, if they’re earlier like at 43, 44, they still have 20 years to prepare themselves for retirement.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. That’s not to say that they’re out of luck and there’s no hope or light at the end of the tunnel. It’s your peak earning years, typically. It’s a time when you’ve got experience under your belt. You can maybe level-up and find a better paying job opportunity. So yeah, you hopefully have started to pay down some debts and now you can start to sock away money if you feel like you’re not on track for that future retirement that’s coming up in 15 years.
Steve Lewit: Exactly, exactly. So if you are in that age bracket, or your children are in that age bracket, it’s really a good idea to talk to them and say, “Hey, look. You have 20 years, or you’ve got 15 years, you’ve got 10 years. You still have time on your side. What kind of plan do you have to prepare yourself for retirement?”
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And then, for the, I guess the additional data here, excuse me, I feel like I have to sneeze.
Steve Lewit: Bless you. He is sneezing.
Gabriel Lewit: You’ve got to take over.
Steve Lewit: He’s holding it. I’m going to do a play-by-play. He’s got his headphones off. He’s reaching for the napkin. Out comes the sneeze, and it is a three pointer. He’s doing better than the Miami Heat did. You’re really leaving me in the flat here. I’m not used to taking the lead here, Gabriel. Hurry up. Sneeze away. He’s back.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m going to do that more often because it was fun watching you flounder.
Steve Lewit: Struggling, floundering.
Gabriel Lewit: You’re like a fish out of water.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s like, well, you’re always the leader here.
Gabriel Lewit: What?
Steve Lewit: My leader is sneezing.
Gabriel Lewit: I did watch the end of that game. I didn’t watch the whole game last night.
Steve Lewit: They almost came back.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, yeah. The Heat’s now down in the count.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: But Jokic.
Steve Lewit: They’re down and out. Jokic is outstanding.
Gabriel Lewit: He’s so good. I wish he was on the Bulls, but oh, well. Anywho, okay. So we’ve got, of the people that had savings, 46% believe that they would likely outlive their savings, so that’s also not a great sign. And then, there’s even more data here. Okay? I won’t give you… There’s tons of data. I’ll just give you a few of them. The majority of Gen X feels at the moment that they may work in their retirement. And I’m guessing, it doesn’t say it on here, but that wouldn’t be by choice. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Well, there’s two parts to that, because a lot of Gen Xers want to work. My older Gen Xers, they really don’t want to retire. They want to switch careers, they want to start another business. They kind of think that way. But here’s also, do they say anything in here about inheritances?
Gabriel Lewit: They don’t. And I don’t believe so, at least.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. That would be an interesting question, because I think most of the Gen Xers are going to get inheritances from their parents.
Gabriel Lewit: And they maybe haven’t yet, which is…
Steve Lewit: Which is why.
Gabriel Lewit: People do count on inheritances from family members to help fund their own retirements. Wealth transfer is a huge deal.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. You don’t want to think about it, “I’m going to get money from mom and dad.” But you think about it because it’s the reality, that eventually you’re going to get money from mom and dad.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And I think, to be on the wise side there, if you have a good relationship with mom and dad and you can talk to them about what they have saved and what you might be able to expect, it doesn’t mean 100% that you should not save on your own. Obviously, that’s risky in its own right, but at least it would give you a sense of what’s likely coming your way so you can potentially feel a little bit more prepared for your upcoming retirement.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I think we have a session coming up, Katie Producer, on wealth transfer to address that issue because most people don’t talk to their kids about their financials.
Gabriel Lewit: You mean on an upcoming show?
Steve Lewit: Upcoming show, yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah. We are going to talk about some wealth transfer ideas.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Just not today.
Steve Lewit: No.
Gabriel Lewit: So you’re going to have to tune back in for more information on that coming soon.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. That was called a teaser.
Gabriel Lewit: A little teaser reel.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Now one other piece of data here, many Gen Xers have their heads in the sand, this is from the article, when it comes to even focusing on their future. Most have no financial plan in place either, given all the data that we just gave you. So 67% of Gen X has no retirement strategy, even though the oldest are about a decade away from retirement age. And so, the breakdown of that here says 19% have no savings and no strategy, 33% have a retirement strategy, and 48% are saving, but with no strategy.
Steve Lewit: Yes. So you’ve got to ask yourselves, I know I educated you and all your brothers and sisters about money, but it’s not in the schools. They don’t teach budgeting, they don’t teach savings. They don’t teach anything about finances in the schools. And if parents are not teacher kind of parents, where they really teach kids about this stuff, that’s how kids grow up. They don’t know what to do.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, it’s very common, for whatever reason, to have this mindset that there’s that data point saving, but no strategy, which is just, “Oh, I’ll figure it out when I get there.” If you are saving, you just kind of think, “Hey. What else am I going to do right now?” And I think that’s one of those areas that we, as financial planners, talk so frequently about, is the importance of starting sooner and having that plan in place. And there’s just so many reasons why that is advantageous versus not many reasons why you should. In other words, there’s no real downside to having a financial plan in place. There are many, many downsides to not having one in place. And so, it does seem odd to me that so many people think, “Oh, I’ll just worry about it when I get closer to retirement at 62, 63.”
Steve Lewit: Well, you know, this is your-
Gabriel Lewit: “And we’ll figure it out then.” Right?
Steve Lewit: Well, a lot of the kids just like to have fun.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: They live for the moment. You’ve been through that and I’ve certainly been through that. So I understand it, but it’s bad.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: It’s bad financial… For your future, it’s not a good thing.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, not so good. So that’s our data to share with you here on these studies and these reports. Actually, this article we read was cultivating this data from multiple new studies done by Prudential, Northwestern, Allianz, a few others in here. And basically there’s… Hopefully, if you resonate with any of those statistics that we said, and you’re listening to the show here, that will prompt you or spur you to maybe, I don’t know, take a second look at some of those things and see what you might be able to do to make some improvements.
Steve Lewit: Or folks, if you have children, this would be a good time, you can invite them and we do this for a lot of our clients, to invite your children here. Even if they’re just starting out, they’re 26, 27. I had a client in yesterday whose daughter just graduated from Tulane. She’s a bio-something engineer, her first job. And she was with her parents. They’re very open about their finances. And now I have an appointment with her to strategize. She’s 22 or 20. She’s a young person, and she’s really nailed this idea that, “I need a strategy for my financial future.”
Gabriel Lewit: Yep, yep.
Steve Lewit: So your kids are welcome here just to talk if they are young and just starting out or don’t know what to do.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. We really, really encourage it. And it’s obviously a busy time for many younger Gen Xers or elder Millennials. You’re in the midst of raising families and kids and work and mid-career. And it’s hard, I think, time-wise to say, “Hey, let’s carve out time. And what do I need to do that for? I’ve got so many years before retirement.” But I concur with you, dad, it is really a good thing to do to spend that time and get yourself that guidance.
Steve Lewit: You bet.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Well, one other just little topic here we wanted to talk about to round out our show here for you today, and this is just a very quick report about complaints about the national credit reporting agencies nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022.
Steve Lewit: All right. It’s a topic that I hold dear to my heart. I can’t stand these agencies. I don’t know how they think, I don’t know what they do. I don’t know how they get credit scores. It is absolutely a mystery. And yet, my financial welfare is dependent on what they say about me.
Gabriel Lewit: It is almost like this mysterious unknown black box. You can Google general tips on what does what, and you can go get Credit Karma, but it’s still a mystery. They don’t spell it out in black and white for you, like, “If you have between X amount of debt and this amount of debt, you get this score. If you have this many open…” There’s just no… It is just a bunch of bull.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. That’s a bunch of malarkey.
Gabriel Lewit: And so, the-
Steve Lewit: I could do nothing for two months and my score goes down 40 points. It’s like, “I didn’t do anything. What happened?”
Gabriel Lewit: So yeah, between 2021, 2022, consumer reports filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against the consumer reporting agencies increased quite a bit.
Steve Lewit: Because they are unregulated, by the way.
Gabriel Lewit: 800,394 complaints in 2022, up from 496,000 in 2021. Now the majority here, what were they? That 89% of the complaints against the three major credit reporting agencies were about incorrect information, including false accounts under individual’s names, unfamiliar credit inquiries, and other harmful information.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay? And so, this can really make it hard to get loans, mortgages, cars. There’s problems. People were complaining about freezing and unfreezing their credit, improper use of their reports, troubles trying to investigate problems, not getting support or assistance. And so, there’s two things, I think two key takeaways from this, at least in my mind. Number one is you wouldn’t know if anything’s wrong with your credit unless you check it.
Steve Lewit: Definitely. Unless you’re psychic, yeah, definitely.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. So there are sites, there is one official site where you can get your free credit report from the three major bureaus every year where it’s actually 100% free. Don’t fall for the pretend scam sites. There’s one real site. If you’re interested in what it is, you can email us. We’ll get that to you. But once you have that information in hand, you’ve got to request your credit reports and then go through them. It’s generally advised you do that once a year.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: And that way, you’ll see if there’s any incorrect information on there that you can attempt to get resolved. And then certainly, if you’re having troubles or struggles with anything with these credit reporting agencies, what’s the benefit of filing a complaint? Oftentimes, people don’t file complaints because they’re like, “What’s it going to do?” Right?
Steve Lewit: Well, you think because it goes into the big dark unknown.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: “I filed a complaint. So who is listening?”
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. You go on online, you fill out a form, and you never hear anything again. But if enough complaints get filed.
Steve Lewit: Well, it got a report out here.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: That’s great.
Gabriel Lewit: It gets the news out there, right?
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: So it’s important to do that if you feel like things aren’t going the way that they should.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. And I think you brought it up earlier, Gabriel, there are steps you can take if your credit score is lower than higher. You want that score in the mid-700s in a perfect world or 800. It is hard to do, but you can get it up there. But if it’s a low score, there are things you can do if you spend the time studying what they suggest, because they really do change the scores. There’s ways to get your scores up.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah. I’m laughing because I agree. I want to say on thing. There’s a funny phrase here I never heard before in this article that I… Have you heard of, everyone here has heard of phishing?
Steve Lewit: You mean like fishing in the ocean?
Gabriel Lewit: P-H, phishing.
Steve Lewit: Oh, phishing. Got it.
Gabriel Lewit: Phishing scams.
Steve Lewit: Scams, yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Okay?
Steve Lewit: On the internet.
Gabriel Lewit: So there’s been reports of a lot of increased scams, phishing scams. But there’s also one called a, Producer Katie, you might have to Google this. I haven’t heard of this, smishing.
Steve Lewit: Smishing.
Gabriel Lewit: A smishing scam. Phishing and smishing.
Steve Lewit: What on earth?
Gabriel Lewit: What is that?
Steve Lewit: Well, I’ve heard of phishing. It’s smish.
Gabriel Lewit: Smishing.
Steve Lewit: Smishing.
Gabriel Lewit: I can’t even say that.
Steve Lewit: Smishing.
Gabriel Lewit: Smishing is the fraudulent practice of sending text messages purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information such as passwords or credit card numbers.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Ah. So it must be like SMS, like texting, smishing.
Steve Lewit: Smishing.
Gabriel Lewit: Phishing and smishing. You learned something new.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, we did. We’re anti-smishers.
Gabriel Lewit: So folks, you want to be aware of phishing attempts, smishing attempts.
Steve Lewit: I get smished a lot.
Gabriel Lewit: Smished.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m going to say that word all day, I think.
Steve Lewit: Right.
Gabriel Lewit: So yes, keep an eye out. If you start to get them… I get this one junk text. It’s not phishing or smishing, but I hit “report junk” every time and I keep getting it.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Over and over and over and over.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I don’t know how they do that.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: In my email, I direct so much into the junk box.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s nuts.
Steve Lewit: And then, I get the same thing over and over again.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: And folks, they are really good. They look real. I got one yesterday, I could swear it was real. I sent it to one of our people here and I said, “Is this real?” “Nope, not real.”
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Most of the time, you’ve got to be cautious.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: And that’s how your credit gets rocked.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, that’s what we’ve got for you folks today. Thanks for tuning in and joining us. If you’ve got questions, if you’re a Gen Xer, you’re looking for some guidance. If you want to revise or update or review or a second opinion on your plan, or lack of a plan and you want some go get started steps for that, give us a call.
Steve Lewit: Or anyone else.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Or anyone else, of course, (847) 499-3330, whether you’re Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z.
Steve Lewit: And don’t be silent.
Gabriel Lewit: I guess Gen Alpha is too young to call us.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: But yeah, give us a call or go to our website, sglfinancial.com.
Steve Lewit: Good job.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, guys, thanks for joining us.
Steve Lewit: Good job, Gabriel.
Gabriel Lewit: Hey, you, too while I was sneezing.
Steve Lewit: Thank you.
Gabriel Lewit: That was excellent work. We’ll talk to you on the next show.
Steve Lewit: All right. Stay well, everybody.
Gabriel Lewit: Bye-bye.
Steve Lewit: See ya.
Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. For any questions about your finances, give SGL a call at (847) 499-3330 or visit us on the web at sglfinancial.com. And be sure to subscribe to join us on next week’s episode.
Prerecorded Voice: Investment Advisory Services are offered through SGL Financial, LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Insurance and other financial products are offered separately through individually licensed and appointed agents.
