Tariffs, Tumbles, & Timing Your Retirement
by SGL Financial
Our 2 Cents – Episode #208
Tariffs, Tumbles, & Timing Your Retirement
We’re focusing on what tariffs, Social Security changes, and market volatility mean for your retirement plan on today’s new episode of Our 2 Cents. Listen to Steve and Gabriel’s discussion now using a link below!
- Tariffs & Turbulence—Market Reactions and Smart Moves:
- We breakdown the market’s drop following the announcement of new global tariffs.
- A caution against emotional, short-term decisions like panic-selling.
- And a reminder to revisit your long-term financial plans instead of reacting to headlines.
- Social Security Shake-Up:
- Updates and key dates you should know from the Social Security Administration.
- How confusing changes are creating frustration for Americans and opportunity for scammers.
- Is the Timing Still Right for a 2025 Retirement?:
- A look at whether it’s still a good year to retire amid current market volatility.
- Planning over timing—why a well-built financial strategy matters more than market ups and downs.
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Podcast Transcript
Announcer: You’re 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: Well, welcome to Our 2 Cents. You’ve got a raspier Gabriel Lewit here today.
Steve Lewit: You are a little raspy.
Gabriel Lewit: Yep, I could tell you why. I was subject to a 22-hour plane delay coming back from my spring break trip with my family here this past Sunday. I actually was supposed to come back Sunday at 4PM and came back Monday at 2PM on my flight.
Steve Lewit: The Odyssey of Gabriel.
Gabriel Lewit: With three kids in an airport, delayed six-
Steve Lewit: I bet the kids handled it better than you did.
Gabriel Lewit: They certainly did, playing Roblox on their iPads. But yeah, I was stuck there for six hours on Saturday.
Steve Lewit: Terrible.
Gabriel Lewit: Five hours at baggage claim on Sunday night, and then six hours on Monday while it continually was delayed. The flight that was coming into Fort Myers was diverted three times trying to get there, kept delaying our flights, and then finally got back home Monday.
Steve Lewit: Well, welcome home-
Gabriel Lewit: Thank you.
Steve Lewit: …raspy one.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, as long as I can get through today’s show, I’ll be excited. We do have important things to talk to you about here. By the time you’re going to get this, you’ll have known this already, but we’re recording this on Thursday and markets are opening this morning to a reaction of Trump announcing basically a, what do you call it? A day of–
Steve Lewit: Liberation Day.
Gabriel Lewit: Liberation Day.
Steve Lewit: Something like that.
Gabriel Lewit: But anyways, it’s basically a worldwide global tariff-
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: …that he is applying and increasing, and markets, at least as of this morning, are down almost 4% for the S&P 500.
Steve Lewit: The markets did not like that.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So many of you out there may have some concern about this by the time you hear this. Knock on wood. Hopefully the shockwave of this, hopefully we’ll have recovered a little bit. We’re still not sure of the long-term impacts, but let’s unpack this a little bit here. Try to alleviate some of your concerns. Again, not knowing where this will be in the next couple of days after we’ve seen what’s occurring here this morning.
Steve Lewit: Yes, we really have to let the dust settle on all of this. There are a lot of thoughts and opinions, especially in my world, the economics world. So we may be headed towards a recession. We might have a slowdown. This could turn around in two weeks under pressure. Trump could just lift the whole thing because that’s–
Gabriel Lewit: Well, yeah, and that’s sort of been the message we’ve been talking about here. We talked about tariffs recently on the show when Trump was announcing auto tariffs of 25% and then rescinding those tariffs and re-establishing them. So we’ve talked about what these are recently if you’ve been listening to the show. So we’re not going to go into depth on what tariffs are at this point and the economics necessarily behind them. Today, of course, the market is not liking this global tariff announcement of Trump, again, announce tariffs on basically everybody.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Now, not getting into the why’s of that, we don’t know exactly why. Of course, the thought he continues to put out there is that this is designed to spur US domestic growth in industry.
Steve Lewit: So, if you can’t buy from overseas, then you have to buy domestic, which is why he said, okay, so folks won’t buy foreign-made cars. They’ll buy Fords and Chevys made in the United States.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. But obviously in the short term, there’s challenges here with this level of tariffs because it is essentially tax that US consumers will have to pay. If everything that we import is more expensive in the short term, there is no just immediate US counterpart to all of those options of where you buy things.
Steve Lewit: We do not have the facilities yet to produce what we will not be getting from overseas. So there is an adjustment period that I think, and this is just my opinion, could be very painful.
Gabriel Lewit: If these are in fact intended to stay, right?
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Depending on what Trump’s ultimate goals here are. So the challenge you’re facing as consumers, of course, is you look at your 401k balance, you’re looking at the news, which is… The news, of course, folks, you know we say this all the time, what does the news love? The news loves fear.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Fear sells for the news. They are going to eat this up and they’re going to put out a lot of fear for you, and that’s going to potentially make you more nervous if you listen to a lot of news. I’ve had a few emails from clients even before they were announced yesterday saying, “Hey, what’s this going to do?” Because the media is making it, the other recessions coming, recession reset. They’re really piling onto this idea, and it could lead to a recession.
Steve Lewit: It could. Look, recessions do happen. It’s part of the natural economic cycle.
Gabriel Lewit: But our job here is to try to stay more level-headed for you.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Let you know, don’t always read into everything the news says or take it at face value. We don’t know exactly how the markets will react in the medium term here, not just the immediate term. And then we’ve got to wait and see a little bit. Now, what we can control are things such as how do you react? How do you view these things? How is your plan set up? What actions should you take or not take? And that’s really what we want to focus on a little bit here today, this morning.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Because at the end of the day, it’s your decision to act or not act or to act one way or another way. And if you’re acting on misinformation or if you’re acting on emotions or you’re acting on impulses, chances are that’s probably not a good decision.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Now, there could be, for example, you could see them… If the market’s still down by the time you listen to this, you might say, “Well, I should sell everything, right? These tariffs are going to tank the economy.” Well, you don’t know that, right? We know they’ve heard the market in the short-term here, but we don’t… The year is still very young.
We don’t know how businesses or countries or anything’s really going to react from this or other plans the administration may have. So you might feel that that would make a lot of sense. Just boom, move all your money to cash, protect yourself. But it also could backfire on you. So we’ve never been a big fan of market timing here at SGL Financial, but of course, if you’ve got a good plan in place, you likely already have short-term buckets that would cover your short-term funding needs or expense needs. If you’re a long ways away from retirement, you shouldn’t really let this worry you too much because markets long-term have ups and downs just like the one we’re seeing here.
Steve Lewit: Exactly.
Gabriel Lewit: So, it can feel very nervous or nerve wracking because it’s been a long time since we’ve had market volatility, right?
Steve Lewit: Well, think of it in 2001 and ’02, the market was down 47%. In 2008, it was down 51%. And then it’s been straight up since the bottom of-
Gabriel Lewit: Well, in 2022, which was three years ago, markets were down, that started-
Steve Lewit: A little blip.
Gabriel Lewit: About 15, 18%.
Steve Lewit: 18%, yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: We are now approaching certainly a correction territory, which is 10% down.
Steve Lewit: Definitely. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: And so, anytime we start to have this, it can feel very uncomfortable. And our goal here is really not to tell you, don’t worry, because I’m sure you’re still going to worry, but put that into context. Make sure it’s part of your plan. And most importantly, if you are really concerned or feeling worried about this, give us a call one-on-one so we can really guide you through this with personal advice based on your actual situations and plans.
Steve Lewit: And your plan. Because different people have different needs and different expectations and goals. But if you take a long… Anytime you’re in the market, Gabriel, I mean this is just like to me, gospel kind of stuff. You have to take a long-term view because short-term, the market goes up and down. Good days, bad days, good years, bad years. But what does the market do over time? It goes up.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And so to recap here folks, call us if you’re feeling concerned, that’s an action you can take. Review your plan is another action you can take if you’re… Which oftentimes follows if you call us. We’ll say, “Let’s review your plan.”
Steve Lewit: Let’s review your plan.
Gabriel Lewit: If you’re worried about all your… If you’re not a client of ours and all your money is far too aggressive right now and you’re thinking about retiring soon, we’re going to talk about that actually as one of our topics on the rest of the show here today. Is this still a good time to retire in 2025? Because we’ve gotten that question from a few clients. Then yeah, you may want to call us and let’s figure out that short-term plan of what to do under the assumption market volatility continues. We can plan around that. And of course, we don’t recommend or encourage you to go and sell all your money to cash. That’s an immediate-
Steve Lewit: Please do not do that.
Gabriel Lewit: Knee-jerk reaction. There’s better ways of approaching that.
Steve Lewit: That usually doesn’t pay off.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Okay. So there’s better ways of approaching that. Also, let’s not rush to assume there will be a recession. I just had a client again, a couple of days ago, ask me, “So yes or no, Gab, will there be a recession?”
Steve Lewit: Did you take out your crystal ball?
Gabriel Lewit: I said, “It’s really not any different than predicting if the market’s going to go up or down. There’s no way to know.” I mean, they were doing recession watch for two years, the last two years, and there was no recession.
Steve Lewit: They gave up on that.
Gabriel Lewit: The news is now back to hammering that there’s going to be recession. Why? Because fear sells. What the data says however, is we need what? Two sustain quarters of negative GDP growth.
Steve Lewit: That’s correct.
Gabriel Lewit: To be in a recession. And we just don’t know that yet.
Steve Lewit: And we don’t have it yet.
Gabriel Lewit: And as you’ve often said, even if there is a recession, still doesn’t mean that the market wouldn’t in some way actually go up this year.
Steve Lewit: So, the economy is so dynamic and so is long-term. That’s why when we build plans, we’re not looking at the next year. Well, we do look at the next year or five years, secure that money so it’s not attached to the market and let the market do its thing. And again, not worry about it if you can. Nobody likes losing money.
Gabriel Lewit: Right.
Steve Lewit: But we know that over time, the mart, everything recovers.
Gabriel Lewit: For example, my investments are down right now too.
Steve Lewit: I noticed mine were too.
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t like it, but it doesn’t worry me. Now you might say, “Well Gabe, you’re not retiring yet.” That’s true. But if you were retiring now or just retired or retiring next year, we can build your plan in a way where again, you’re not going to like the markets being down. Everybody makes more money when the markets are up. But we can try to eliminate that worry and that concern through proper planning.
Steve Lewit: And there are other layers to this, Gabriel. People are fearful for their Social Security. Are they going to cut out Social Security? Are they going to cut out Medicare?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, that’s a good transition actually. I know we had talked about today, we also wanted to give updates even prior to this Trump Liberation Day tariff announcement yesterday about some of the changes to Social Security that are being made by the current administration. We’ve received a number of questions about that in the last two weeks. And so let’s transition to that. But before we do that, let me just reiterate here. If you have questions, call us, 847-499-3330. If you have concerns about where the markets are or where they’re headed, call us. Or you can email us at info@sglfinancial.com or go to our website, click contact us, and we can set up a time to talk.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. And even if you’re a little bit worried, give us a call. Let us help you deal with that. Because at the end of the day, we’d like everybody to cruise through this as best they can.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Exactly. Okay, so Social Security, as you mentioned, people are a little concerned of late. What’s happening with it? Where is that headed? Today, we’re not going to talk about the future of Social Security, but just the recent changes that have been made to how you’ll apply for benefits, how you’ll change information. Can you call in? Are they closing offices? A lot of changes have occurred with this Social Security department with the new administration.
So let’s walk through some of these here. First and foremost, couple key dates. There were going to be some changes that were going to take place March 31st. They got extended to April 14th. Okay, so what are going to be some of these changes to be aware about if you’re on the cusp of applying or already taking your benefits? Well, basically the original change was that anybody applying for Social Security that couldn’t apply online and that was previously applying over the phone, would have to 100% drive to a local office and could no longer apply over the phone.
Steve Lewit: Show up.
Gabriel Lewit: And the reason for this is the belief that there is a lot of fraud that was occurring over the phone with phone applications and by going through the ID.me online verification process or in person, this would help to cut down or eliminate fraud. However, that was a very big concern for a variety of people that are either unable to use online systems or quite frankly, maybe they can’t drive to a local office or really far from a local office because they’re closing offices. We’re going to get to that in a moment.
So the changes, here’s the updated changes. Anybody applying for Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, or supplemental security income, who can’t verify their identity online will be allowed to complete their claims over the phone without the need to come into an office.
Steve Lewit: Yes. And I say yes, because-
Gabriel Lewit: The other challenge is they’ve cut a lot of staffing.
Steve Lewit: You can’t get anybody on the phone.
Gabriel Lewit: I’ve read numerous… Obviously I’m not a Social Security agent, but I read an article from a reporter, a couple articles of people trying to call and get into to speak with somebody on the phone through the Social Security phone numbers. And they’re having a very difficult time. Now, some people have managed to get through, no problem. Many people have reported to me as well as to the things I’ve read online, that you could spend hours on hold, you could be on hold and your call gets dropped. Just all these challenges that people are having right now. So it is a difficult time. It’s a rocky road. Be prepared for that if you’re looking to apply for benefits or have questions. It may not be a smooth process while these wrinkles get ironed out.
So basically, what does that mean? The previous announcement, again has said that anybody applying for cash benefits or changing their direct deposit information would need to provide proof of identity, either in person or use the online Social Security system. Thus, again, not being able to use the phone.
And the next part here is basically a handful of other changes. So let’s see. Let me look at my list here. Oh yeah, there’s some questions here. How do you prove your identity? Well, you go onto the my Social Security account portal, which is going to force you to go through ID.me, which is an identity verification system that’s created. And basically you could start your process over the phone if you were otherwise unable to do the online verification. But those claims will not be processed until the person also verifies their identity in person at a Social Security office.
Steve Lewit: So, what they had proposed if everybody showing up obviously can’t work. And now they’ve backed off on that and pushed everybody to the phone if they can’t prove their ID on the internet. And now you have to figure out okay, and be patient and persevere on getting through on the phone to get your benefits set up.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, and even then, they’re going to force many people to go to an office. Unless you follow into that exception of Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, or SSI.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Only then can you use the phone at the moment. So if you’re just a normal person looking to apply for benefits and you can’t do the online version for some reason-
Steve Lewit: You’re going to have to go to an office.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s what this means in short. You’re going to have to go to an office. Now, depending on where you live, that might be really easy. Depending on where you live, that might be very hard. But that’s the challenge because one of the other updates here is that the… Hold on here. Locations are closing. The agency is set to shutter dozens of Social Security offices throughout the country and has already laid out plans to lay off thousands of workers as part of that. So basically the website, the DOGE website, actually Department of Government Efficiency says that leases for 47 Social Security field offices have been or will be ended including in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky, and North Carolina. And if you want to know exactly where you should go, there is a website, Social Security office location tool that you can go to see what the nearest location to you-
Steve Lewit: Have you tried that site?
Gabriel Lewit: I haven’t actually yet.
Steve Lewit: Neither have I. So I hope it’s working.
Gabriel Lewit: I hope so as well. This reminds me, okay, and I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this today, but I actually received one myself. There’s an uptick right now in Social Security scams.
Steve Lewit: Oh my. Yeah, I got one too.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Please be very cautious here with what you’re clicking and who you’re calling because with all these changes, the scammers are celebrating in the streets because confusion helps make their job easier to try to scam you.
Steve Lewit: And my goodness, do they look real?
Gabriel Lewit: They do. Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Your Social Security has changed.
Gabriel Lewit: I got one that looked almost identical to an actual email I know I get from the Social Security administration saying, “Hey, your benefit information has changed, click here.” But it was not the real-
Steve Lewit: We need to verify.
Gabriel Lewit: It was not the real site. And so please be cautious with what you’re clicking or who you’re calling, and make sure you’re going to the actual ssa.gov website and looking for the right contact information on that actual website. Don’t click your stuff through emails.
Steve Lewit: So, if you get an email, you’re not sure, don’t respond to the email.
Gabriel Lewit: Or use the phone number on the email.
Steve Lewit: Or use the phone number. Go to your account on the SSA site and see what it says.
Gabriel Lewit: Please. Yes. Now, this hasn’t impacted many people, but the SSA announced that it would be resuming collecting debt through its treasury offset program that had been suspended since the pandemic. I actually had to look that up because I hadn’t heard about it before. But that’s another change. Again, locations closing, people being laid off, changes to how you apply. That’s pretty much what you should know. Summary of what’s happening with Social Security. And again, if you have questions on that, we’re here to help navigate you through that. Give us a call anytime and we can give you the scoop.
Steve Lewit: For sure. We are scooping today.
Gabriel Lewit: We are giving you many scoops today. All right, so that’s the updates of the news.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, it’s a rocky road. People are really-
Gabriel Lewit: A lot of changes.
Steve Lewit: A lot of changes, a lot of unknowns. People don’t like, nobody likes the unknown. A lot of fear because we don’t know what’s going to happen. And especially if you’re on a tight budget, if you don’t have extra cash and you’re living on a strict budget, it becomes concerning because prices might go up. Hopefully you don’t lose a job if you’re still working. So all of that stuff contributes to a lot of emotional distress. And Gabriel is going to say it again. If you have that, what should they do, Gabriel?
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Give us a call, and I’m not going to do the number here yet, we just talked about, I’ll give the number again here a little later. But email us, call us, let us help put your mind a little bit more at ease.
Steve Lewit: We’ll try.
Gabriel Lewit: We’ll try. Now, I mentioned we wanted to talk today about this topic of is 2025 still a good year to retire? We’ve had a number of questions around this, well, I think I’m going to put off my retirement for another year. And Gabe, do you think I should still retire this year with where the market’s at and the economy? And we thought we would just touch upon this and we could spend a little bit more time on it in a future episode. How do you plan for retirement here in 2025? But the quick answer is yes. If you’re asking that question-
Steve Lewit: Yes, what?
Gabriel Lewit: It is a good time to retire if you have a good plan.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Right, that shows you-
Steve Lewit: Well yes, if.
Gabriel Lewit: Right. That shows you that you can comfortably retire. So what does that mean? Again, just as a quick recap of a good plan. Well, we’re going to run your cash flow. We’re going to see how much income you need. We’re going to look at your assets even pending any changes in the last few months with investment balance accounts. And we’re going to say, “Hey, yeah, you still have enough money.” Now, speaking of enough money, I want to put something in perspective about the stock market being down. Can I take a sidebar on this?
Steve Lewit: You’re my leader today.
Gabriel Lewit: I know everybody’s very concerned about the market being down right now, but you know what was pretty unusual last year? The market going up 25% even after it had already gone up 25% the year before. And so if you look back to your balances, this is what I call, you and I have talked about this, short-term memory loss syndrome, right? Where if you had looked at where the market was at the start of 2024, I believe we’re [inaudible 00:21:48] than that. Which was considered-
Steve Lewit: I believe you’re right.
Gabriel Lewit: Which is still considered, historically speaking, we’re on the end of 15 years of the market generally going up. It’s still pretty good.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: However, if you measure that from the start of this year, you’re going to feel like, oh my gosh, I just lost so much money, right?
Steve Lewit: Well, there’s a reality to that.
Gabriel Lewit: Perspective.
Steve Lewit: You did lose money.
Gabriel Lewit: You did.
Steve Lewit: But the perspective is that if you go back to 2008 at the beginning of this bull market, you’re way ahead.
Gabriel Lewit: Way ahead.
Steve Lewit: The market could go down 20%. You’re way ahead.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, and I just-
Steve Lewit: That’s why you have to look long-term. You cannot do a short-term analysis.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And even with the current… Let’s say over the last 15 years back at the prior market high, the S&P had been compounding at 15% for the last 15 years. With the current drop, it’s probably more like 13.75%.
Steve Lewit: 13 and a half.
Gabriel Lewit: Which is still very, very good. And I just mentioned that not to say you shouldn’t be concerned about the market going down, but also if you have the right amount of money in your portfolio today, and you can’t comfortably retire, we can build you a plan that’s going to give you that peace of mind. And yeah, time is one of those crucial things you can’t get back. And I hate seeing people delay their retirement just because of a very short-term recent drop in the market. When all said and done, they’re probably still, in my opinion, still in very good financial shape.
Steve Lewit: Exactly.
Gabriel Lewit: So, I don’t know if that makes sense.
Steve Lewit: It made sense to me.
Gabriel Lewit: Did it?
Steve Lewit: Oh yeah. I’m sitting here saying to myself, yeah, that makes sense.
Gabriel Lewit: Let me put it one different way.
Steve Lewit: Another way.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Let say-
Steve Lewit: It’s got to be a football-
Gabriel Lewit: Let’s say five years ago you had a million dollars.
Steve Lewit: No, this has to be a football analysis.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s not actually. Let’s say five years ago you had a million dollars. And then as the start of this year, after a stellar 2023 and 2024, let’s say you had 1.5 million dollars. But along the way, when you got to 1.25 million, you were probably like, you know what? I think I could retire, but hey, the market’s doing good. I’m going to ride it out a little bit longer. So then the 1.25 went to 1.5 million, and now we’re down 10%, let’s say from 1.5 million, which is 150,000 and you’re at 1.35 million. There’s two ways to look at that. You could say, “Oh my gosh, I just lost $150,000. I can’t afford to retire anymore.” However, the one year older version of you who said at 1.25 million, oh, this is great. I’m up so much.
Steve Lewit: Exactly. So which you do you pick? Which one do you pick?
Gabriel Lewit: Do you see what I mean? So if you are comfortable at 1.25 million and it was up to 1.35-
Steve Lewit: And you lost a little.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s just interesting, again, putting these things sometimes in perspective.
Steve Lewit: But to your point, Gabriel, what’s so important is when you look at the market, is when do you take your starting point? If you take your starting point six months ago, it’s very problematic. But if you take your starting point 10 years ago, it’s a whole different story. Look, if you retired at the beginning of 2008… Look, when the market goes down, clearly it’s not the best time to retire. But if you want to… It’s always better to retire when the market’s going up.
Gabriel Lewit: You just reminded me of a sports analogy.
Steve Lewit: I’ll get to that.
Gabriel Lewit: You said you thought I was going to use a sports analogy.
Steve Lewit: The real question is, do you want to retire, and can you afford to retire whether the market’s up or down? Now in a good retirement plan, if the market is up, a retirement plan is going to take into consideration that the market’s going to go down. It’s going to plan for this kind of an event. And if the market is already down or might be going down further, a plan will accommodate that. So if you really want to retire and if your plan can support you, go for it. This is your time.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And here’s my sports analogy for you.
Steve Lewit: I was waiting for it.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, let’s say you’re a football team and you’re beating the other team, 50 to 7, right? 50 points to 7 points. You’d be like, “Oh my gosh, I’m crushing them.” Well, the other team then scores 14 points and you score 7. So the end score is 57 to 21. You still stomped them, right?
Steve Lewit: Yes. Just doesn’t feel as good.
Gabriel Lewit: Your point differential, oh man, I could have held them to seven points. We won. 57 to 20 is different than 50 to 7. It feels different, but you’re still stomped them.
Steve Lewit: And you’re still a winner.
Gabriel Lewit: And you’re still a winner and you’re still ahead. So again, use some of this perspective. Hopefully this is making sense for you. And I think it’s still yes, a good time to retire. As you said, Steve, if you’ve got the money and you’ve got a good plan.
Steve Lewit: And you want to retire.
Gabriel Lewit: And you want to retire.
Steve Lewit: Go for it. This is the time to do it.
Gabriel Lewit: Now, to end our show here today, I know you wanted to have… I know we’ve been a little doomy-gloomy, but this is important stuff and we don’t want to minimize it.
Steve Lewit: No, we don’t.
Gabriel Lewit: If you have questions or concerns about… But let’s end our show with a little bit of a fun uptick here. You ran a very important study here in the office.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Do you want to lead into this a little bit?
Steve Lewit: Well, this seems strange in light of all that’s going on, but I think it’s a good idea to add this in. So folks, I’ve been on a mission to find the best protein bar out there because I eat protein bars and I’ve gotten… We did this… I think we were on the last podcast, we talk about this and I got three or four folks that wrote in and say, this is the best protein bar. And everybody on staff here, we have 30 people on staff and half the staff has their own best protein bars. So I decided that we should do a protein bar-off.
Gabriel Lewit: Challenge.
Steve Lewit: Challenge. I call it a protein bar-off.
Gabriel Lewit: The dance-off.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. So, we got a whole bunch of protein bars, we’ve got Prime Bites cookie dough, Prime Bites grand cinnamon roll, Beast Bites, Huel Bars, KIND Protein, Barbells, No Cows, Kirkland’s. And the list goes on here.
Gabriel Lewit: This was over our lunch breaks, by the way.
Steve Lewit: This is-
Gabriel Lewit: Not taking valuable work time to do this.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, this is people just jumping in. And we laid them out in the conference room on different plates with little bite sized pieces and we had everybody vote. So folks, I’m happy to report… Actually, I’m not happy to report because my bar came in third, I think. I’m happy to report that our team here in a double-blind research study… We should publish this. You think we can get-
Gabriel Lewit: I don’t think you have enough data points.
Steve Lewit: I don’t think I have enough. Is the KIND Protein MAX Sweet & Salty Caramel bar. They love the KIND bars.
Gabriel Lewit: Interesting.
Steve Lewit: Which is really interesting. Now, I’m a No Cow person.
Gabriel Lewit: This is the brand called No Cow?
Steve Lewit: It’s called No Cow.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: What we didn’t evaluate, which shame on me, we evaluated taste, we didn’t evaluate chewability. I got one comment from one of our employees say, “Which one was the dog food?” So folks-
Gabriel Lewit: We know you hid it in there, right?
Steve Lewit: It might be. So now the team, you don’t know this Gabriel, but now the team wants to do a beef jerky-off next month. They want to do one a month.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, maybe we’ll just do one more. So folks, if you want to have a good protein bar, I guess you go get the KIND Protein MAX Sweet & Salty Caramel. It was a top winner in our challenge here.
Steve Lewit: And I did look at the KIND ingredients, by the way, because I’m an ingredients snob. They’re pretty good. They’re pretty… Some of the bars have sugar in them or lots of sucrose and they overly sweet. But the ingredients in the KIND bars were really, really very good as they are in a few others, including my No Cow.
Gabriel Lewit: And the least liked was Prime Bites cookie dough.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I tried that. God was that awful.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So I don’t like protein bars generally at all. So I came in and I just took 1 out of the 10 and I’m not sure which one it was, but I did not enjoy it.
Steve Lewit: You did not.
Gabriel Lewit: And so, I had no desire to taste the other nine.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I had a few people that said, “You know Steve, you ruined my lunch.”
Gabriel Lewit: There you go.
Steve Lewit: They’re not protein bar eaters.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, there you go. There’s the research.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Hopefully that’s helpful for you. Go try them out. Let us know what you prefer. But again, most importantly here, with markets being a little bit in turmoil at the moment and all the changes that are happening out there with this new administration, give us a call. Let us know how we can help you have more peace of mind if you are concerned about it. Give us a call, 847-499-3330. Or go to our website, sglfinancial.com, click contact us. Or you can email us info@sglfinancial.com. And most importantly, we are here for you, to support you in any way, shape, or form that we can.
Steve Lewit: Yes, sir. Well said.
Gabriel Lewit: All right, well, have yourself a wonderful day. We’ll give you some updates on this next week when we see sort of this one week delayed reaction time after this big rock has been tossed into the pond. So stay tuned and we’ll be back with further updates.
Steve Lewit: Stay well everybody.
Gabriel Lewit: Bye now.
Steve Lewit: Bye.
Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our Two 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.
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