Cash Prizes and Financial Surprises
by SGL Financial
Our 2 Cents – Episode #194
Cash Prizes and Financial Surprises
We are back with another exciting episode of Our 2 Cents! In today’s episode, Steve and Gabriel kick things off by answering some of our “Getting to Know Us” questions and explore the financial wisdom hidden in some classic game shows. Then, they unpack insights from David Blanchett, PhD, CFA, CFP®, on reporting differences between investors and financial professionals. Listen in now using a link below!
- Getting to Know Steve and Gabriel:
- Did your family ever pressure you to attend a certain school or pursue a certain career path?
- What physical traits do you share with your relatives?
- Financial Lessons from Game Shows:
- We reveal the surprising financial insights we found in classic game shows—teaching lessons in strategy, risk, and reward beyond the bright lights!
- The Insights You Didn’t Expect from Blanchett:
- Through Blanchett’s analysis, uncover surprising stats that highlight key disconnects between clients and financial pros.
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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: Welcome back to Our 2 Cents, everybody. You’ve got your hosts, Gabriel Lewit and Steven Lewit.
Steve Lewit: I’m still chewing my lunch.
Gabriel Lewit: He sure is. He had a chip or two left over that he’s savoring, I think.
Steve Lewit: There’s nothing worse than downing a bowl of Chipotle salad, rice and beans and everything in like three minutes so we could do a podcast.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we got a show, man. Chop chop. We got to stay on schedule. Our listeners need us and we need to be here on time to record our show.
Steve Lewit: And I’m here. I’m here for you and I am here for everybody.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, good.
Steve Lewit: And I have a full stomach, I’m so happy.
Gabriel Lewit: You got a strawberry Izze in hand.
Steve Lewit: I got my Izze in hand and some chips-
Gabriel Lewit: Your volume is perfect.
Steve Lewit: … chips that are waiting for me. My volume is a little low, but it’s fine.
Gabriel Lewit: We’re ready to go.
Steve Lewit: We’re ready to go.
Gabriel Lewit: All right. Well today, because we’ve hinted at this for a while, but we keep losing the time to do it. We’re going to do a gettin’ to know, getting to know Steve and Gabriel Lewit here.
Steve Lewit: We haven’t done that in a long time.
Gabriel Lewit: No. I’ve noticed, I’ve started to shorthand my ings to ins, gettin’s instead of gettings, right. Stuff like that.
Steve Lewit: Well, you know it’s interesting-
Gabriel Lewit: And I feel like I hear this from a lot of people by the way.
Steve Lewit: Gettin’.
Gabriel Lewit: Gettin’s and ins and versus ings.
Steve Lewit: I’ve been doing, “You wanna?”
Gabriel Lewit: You wanna?
Steve Lewit: “You wanna go to the light show?”
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, okay.
Steve Lewit: And “You wanna have dinner?”
Gabriel Lewit: I have to share this because it’s really cute and it’s related to what we’re talking about here, but my kids Audrey and Nathan in particular. Well, it started with Audrey and she’s learning to speak a little better and better every year. And when you say what about something, you say, “What about?”
Steve Lewit: What about.
Gabriel Lewit: And she calls it, “Whabout?”
Steve Lewit: Whabout.
Gabriel Lewit: And I’ve been working on this for six months now. And then soon Nathan started doing it even though he prior to that said what about, now all they’re like, “Dad, whabout this? Dad, whabout this?”
Steve Lewit: Whabout?
Gabriel Lewit: It’s not whabout, it’s what about. Anyhoo, so I digress. But yes, trying to, we’re molding our own English language here. Whabout that?
Steve Lewit: So, you wanna? You wanna go forward?
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Yes I do.
Steve Lewit: All right. What about the getting to know you thing?
Gabriel Lewit: All right, so gettin’… I did it again. Gettin’, getting to know you. Gosh, I think I’m trying to speak too fast.
Steve Lewit: It’s like the song, getting to know you.
Gabriel Lewit: Getting to know you. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Gettin’ to know you.
Gabriel Lewit: Here’s, I’ve got a list of questions that we’ve assembled to use for these and we’re just going to pick a couple. No rhyme nor reason for this. This one, I will say is an interesting one. I don’t know if I’ve ever asked you this. Did your family ever pressure you to attend a certain school or pursue a certain career path, Mr. Lewit?
Steve Lewit: Oh my gosh. Yeah. So yeah, my family thought the only worthwhile professions were doctors, accountants and somebody else. Doctors, accountants and lawyers. That’s a traditional Jewish attitude towards working.
Gabriel Lewit: Were you doing what we’re doing now when your parents passed?
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I had already started doing the financial business. But look, this is really interesting because I always wanted to play football as a youngster. So I went to-
Gabriel Lewit: Sorry, I couldn’t picture that. What would you be, like a bench warmer?
Steve Lewit: What? I was a world-class athlete.
Gabriel Lewit: The water boy.
Steve Lewit: Why am I getting this abuse? I was a world-class athlete.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, but tennis players don’t play football… I don’t know, play football. They feel like opposite sports.
Steve Lewit: Well, that’s the whole point that I’m trying to make is that I wanted to play football, so I went to Brooklyn Technical High School, which at that point, it was 6,000 boys in one school. I had four years of 6,000 boys. It set my social life back incredibly badly.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I will say that doesn’t sound like fun.
Steve Lewit: But anyway, so I signed up for the football team as a freshman. I brought home the little document that the parents had to sign and I said, “Mom and Dad, I want to play football.” And they looked at me and said, “No, we’re not signing that. You’re going to be a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant.”
Gabriel Lewit: What does that have to do with playing football?
Steve Lewit: You’re not playing football. And that was a lifelong dream of mine.
Gabriel Lewit: So, when you didn’t do that, you became, what was your first career? An opera singer?
Steve Lewit: No.
Gabriel Lewit: What was the first thing you did out of school?
Steve Lewit: I played tennis.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, it was tennis, then opera.
Steve Lewit: They hated that.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. I was going to say they probably weren’t too happy with your choices for a while.
Steve Lewit: When I told them I was singing opera, they said, “Are you crazy?” Now what I learned, do you mind if I spend another-
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Just a minute.
Steve Lewit: What I learned is that my dad had a beautiful singing voice and always wanted to be a singer. And I didn’t find that out until I started singing.
Gabriel Lewit: No kidding.
Steve Lewit: And he started singing with me one day and I said, “Dad, what a beautiful…” He says, “Yeah, I always wanted to be a singer. You know what my parents told me?”
Gabriel Lewit: No way, Jose.
Steve Lewit: “No way. You got to be a doctor, lawyer or an accountant.”
Gabriel Lewit: And what was he?
Steve Lewit: He owned the candy store. We sold newspapers and cigarettes.
Gabriel Lewit: So, you guys, both of you let your parents down it sounds like.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, we did. What about you?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, actually I don’t-
Steve Lewit: I was your parent. I should know this.
Gabriel Lewit: To my knowledge, you guys didn’t want me to be anything in particular that I can recall or to go to any particular school other than one that was less expensive than a lot more expensive.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. We didn’t want to bias. We wanted to give you the freedom to design your own life.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. You did try to talk to me, at a brief moment I was interested in being a police officer.
Steve Lewit: I remember that. I was gonna bring that up.
Gabriel Lewit: I still think that would be fun to this day at some level.
Steve Lewit: Oh. Wait, did you hear what I just said? “I was gonna…” I was going to bring that up.
Gabriel Lewit: I see. I’m telling you, this happens. It’s like, I’ve noticed it, not just with me by the way, folks. Check yourself as well. You may notice you’re starting to do this because everybody around here is dropping the I-N-Gs.
Steve Lewit: They don’t say a T at the end and things like that.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s interesting. I’ve noticed this.
Steve Lewit: I see I’m doing it too.
Gabriel Lewit: Yep. Also, I’ve noticed a lot of people are like, “How are you doin’?” Doin’, hah. Just see. “How you doin’?” Instead of, “How are you doing?” The whole language and the entire English language is changing.
Steve Lewit: Well, if you ever said to somebody, “How are you doing?” They would look at you like you’re crazy. “What’s wrong with you?”
Gabriel Lewit: How are you doing today, good sir?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. So folks, my son wanted to be a police officer, which I thought was very admirable. I mean that’s great service and everything.
Gabriel Lewit: And then I thought about, okay, FBI agent would be neat, but then I was like, I really wanted to have a family and that seemed like both of those would put kind of a kibosh on the quality of family life. So that was really what drove me away from that. But yeah, interesting.
Steve Lewit: So, when I finished-
Gabriel Lewit: Doctor, dentist, what was it? Doctor, dentist, lawyer?
Steve Lewit: Doctor, lawyer, accountant.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh, accountant. Okay. No dentists.
Steve Lewit: So, when I finished my opera career, that’s when I went back to my roots, which is economics and money and everything. I said, “I’m going to start… I want to help people with their money.” And that’s how this all started.
Gabriel Lewit: Cool. I’m going to give you-
Steve Lewit: You’re welcome. You’re welcome.
Gabriel Lewit: Thank you. I’ll give you one more easy one, which I think you’ll say the same thing about this that I’ll say. This one, again, these all just came from a big list we brainstormed, but what physical traits do you share with your relatives?
Steve Lewit: Maybe why don’t you take that first?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, people are always like, “You guys look alike.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, we do.
Gabriel Lewit: I’m like, “Well, he is my dad.” And you’re like, “Well, he is my son.” So yeah, I’d say you and your brother also have some similar characteristics.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, we look like each other.
Gabriel Lewit: A little bit. Yeah,
Steve Lewit: A little bit. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: I think me and my brother look a little bit alike.
Steve Lewit: Exactly. No, I think you’re a lot alike. You got a lot of your mother in there.
Gabriel Lewit: We’re all taller, a little taller. Obviously very good looking.
Steve Lewit: Extremely. Extremely. And no ego.
Gabriel Lewit: No ego.
Steve Lewit: That’s the best part of it. There’s no ego and modest.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes, exactly. All right, well-
Steve Lewit: I’m trying to think of what else, subtle things like that. My father’s posture, I have his posture.
Gabriel Lewit: Was your dad left-handed?
Steve Lewit: No, he was right-handed.
Gabriel Lewit: So, my daughter, your granddaughter, Ava, is left-handed.
Steve Lewit: Is she? Wow. That’s great. Left-handed people are the best.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: All right, well we don’t want to get too off. We could just yap about non-financial stuff probably for hours. But let’s get to our originally scheduled programming.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. What are we talk… What do you got for us today, Gabriel?
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, well I’ve got a few things, okay.
Steve Lewit: Because I was eating my lunch.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes, yes. I think you’ll be able to jump right into this here. And the first one here that we’re going to talk about is how is your retirement like a favorite game show? Or you’re investing like a favorite game show.
Steve Lewit: Like roulette?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, we try to come up with these fun little analogies for money because if we just talked about bonds and stocks all day, I think people would fall asleep.
Steve Lewit: Might be interesting. A little boring.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. The alpha and the gamma and the beta today.
Steve Lewit: Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Anyways.
Steve Lewit: They’re boring.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, so the first one is The Price Is Right.
Steve Lewit: All right.
Gabriel Lewit: Do you remember this?
Steve Lewit: I do, I do. I used to get it wrong.
Gabriel Lewit: You were not good at guessing The Price Is Right?
Steve Lewit: Terrible. I was either way over or way under.
Gabriel Lewit: So obviously I know you were eating your Chipotle while I was diligently prepping here, but if I just ask you, the game show “The Price Is Right, what would that connotate to you when it comes to investing or planning? What would be… The Price Is Right?
Steve Lewit: I would say if you’re being charged for being… like we charge people for being investment advisor. Advisory, is the price right? If you’re buying mutual funds.
Gabriel Lewit: That’s a good take. That wasn’t actually in our notes for you, which I know you didn’t read, but I like that take actually.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Is there value in it? So the price is right when there’s value for what you’re getting. In other words, I think we all make a judgment when we pay for something, am I getting the equivalent back both physically and emotionally? I got to really feel good about it. So we have people that come… What are you doing?
Gabriel Lewit: Sorry.
Steve Lewit: Why do you always distract me like this?
Gabriel Lewit: No, folks, he threw his dirty Chipotle napkin in front of me, and I was just-
Steve Lewit: I didn’t throw it in front of you.
Gabriel Lewit: I was just scooting it out of the way because it was distracting me. I was trying to listen diligently here.
Steve Lewit: It just wound up there by itself. Oh my gosh.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: So, everything, the price is right when the value is there for what you’re paying. And if the value is not there, the price is wrong.
Gabriel Lewit: Yes, yes. That’s very true.
Steve Lewit: What do you think?
Gabriel Lewit: I was thinking of a movie quote, which I can’t repeat it here, where somebody’s like, “The price is wrong,” and then there’s another addition to that but I can’t say it on the show because it would be inappropriate, but it was a play on the quote, The Price Is Right, but he says the price is wrong.
Steve Lewit: Can you tell us what movie it was?
Gabriel Lewit: I actually can’t remember the movie, but I do happen to remember random movie quotes from time to time. And that one popped into my head.
Steve Lewit: So folks, if anyone knows the quote, could you write us in? I’d like to know what movie this was.
Gabriel Lewit: Anyways, so yeah, what we had kind of noted here, Steve, your answer was great.
Steve Lewit: Thank you.
Gabriel Lewit: And the other thing I think that often comes to mind is if you’re buying a stock, right, for example, is the price right for that stock? Again, to your point, you’d want to buy a stock if the value is there. And what’s interesting is when a lot of people are selling, many other people are buying.
Steve Lewit: Well, that’s who they’re selling to.
Gabriel Lewit: And there’s this idea that everybody has a different opinion, so who’s right, who’s wrong, value is in the eye of the beholder.
Steve Lewit: Value is very subjective.
Gabriel Lewit: But that is the age-old question around buying investments, is the price right? Am I buying at the right time? Is the market going to crash? Is it at a low point? So that really has a relevant impact on your planning.
Steve Lewit: I just had this discussion yesterday with a client who needs a trust. Now, you know you can buy a trust for $800 or $2,000 or 4,000 or 8,000. So he says, “Well how much should I pay?” The value has to be, are you getting a good trust no matter what price you’re paying?
Gabriel Lewit: Agreed. Okay. Next game show. And this is a fun little twist here. We’ll see what your mental thought connections are on this and then I’ll give you what we wrote down.
Steve Lewit: My neurons are so excited right now.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. The next one is, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? That’s not me asking you that question, that was the name of the game show.
Steve Lewit: Oh, okay. I thought you were saying… I was wondering what you meant by that.
Gabriel Lewit: No, no, you are definitely smarter-
Steve Lewit: Well, how did this game show-
Gabriel Lewit: I think you’ll be happy about this. You are in fact smarter than a 5th grader.
Steve Lewit: I am. Well…
Gabriel Lewit: Well, let’s see. Let’s see, if Producer Gabby can pull this up here.
Steve Lewit: What is this show?
Gabriel Lewit: We’ll type in, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? This maybe will jog your memory here. Okay.
Steve Lewit: I’ve never even heard of this show.
Gabriel Lewit: You’ve never heard of this show?
Steve Lewit: No.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: No, this is… You know this.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I think they were answering, they would have 5th graders I think, actually on the show. And they would ask both adults and 5th graders the questions, right. And five actual 5th grade classmates can help the adult player as he tries to reach the million dollar jackpot. Anyways, so he can use the kids’ answers or he can save and he can use his own answer or her own answer. I don’t actually remember. I did used to watch this, but it’s been a long time. But how would you relate that to your financial planning?
Steve Lewit: I’m trying to think of a good segue into, am I smarter than a five…? Well, five-year-olds-
Gabriel Lewit: 5th grader.
Steve Lewit: 5th graders.
Gabriel Lewit: Which is about 10 or 11. Yeah, because my son’s eight and he’s in 3rd grade.
Steve Lewit: I don’t know. I don’t get this. I mean, 5th graders can every once in a while speak of words of wisdom that you wonder where they got that from.
Gabriel Lewit: You’ll get it after I give you the thought.
Steve Lewit: I think I need help here.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay, well here’s kind of the idea. If you can’t explain the basics of your retirement plan in a way that a 5th grader might understand, it may be in fact too complicated or you don’t really understand it enough yourself, because you should be able to explain the core of it in fairly simple terms. So you have a good sense as well of how it’s kind of a litmus test.
Steve Lewit: Yes. Some people would suggest that if you can’t explain it simply, you really don’t understand it.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And that’s the idea. And we’ve talked to many people about, when we first start planning, I say, “Let’s start by creating a picture of where you are at today.” And sometimes I’ll even ask, “Out of curiosity, how are you invested today? Do you have a good sense of how your funds are allocated and how did you come to that?” And they’ll look at me and be like-
Steve Lewit: Then you get that blank look.
Gabriel Lewit: “Uh.”
Steve Lewit: “Uh. Can I bring my 5th grader in?”
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. It was like, hmm, maybe I’ll have my son pick a stock for me. Yeah. So that’s the idea there. Okay. Not a lot more to say-
Steve Lewit: So let me ask you a question. If you go see your financial advisor and they’re talking about alpha and beta and different sector performance and what the international emerging margin… and this is really over your head, what do you say to that person?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, a simpler way would be like, “Okay, I’ve got a very aggressive stock-focused strategy where the advisor is attempting to pick the stocks on my behalf.” Maybe that would be the simple way of explaining it. But you can take even complicated things and you can simplify them down to, “Okay, what are you actually doing and why are you doing it?”
Steve Lewit: And I think the other thing that you do, which I think is really wonderful, you use tons of analogies. You got restaurant analogies and football analogies and dentist analogies.
Gabriel Lewit: They just sort of pop in my head. I don’t know.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Analogies are great because that clarifies everything.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Yeah. I mean we try to keep things simple. Okay, next game show. You probably have heard this one, I hope. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Steve Lewit: Oh, I love that show.
Gabriel Lewit: Do you remember this, right?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Love that.
Gabriel Lewit: This was popular for a while. There was a whole movie made about it, the Slumdog Millionaire. Yeah. Great movie by the way. Great movie. If you go back and look at that, that was like the start of Dev Patel, is that his name? Dev Patel, I think.
Steve Lewit: Dev, yeah, some… Dev.
Gabriel Lewit: I think that was the start of his, now he’s in Monkey Man and a bunch of other stuff.
Steve Lewit: He’s in everything. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. That was one of the start of his career movies and it was a great movie.
Steve Lewit: Is that when they put you in the booth too or is that-
Gabriel Lewit: That you have to answer 20 questions in a row or 15, I forget how many.
Producer Gabby:
And the price raises.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, each time, it starts off like 1,000. If you get it right, you can take your money or double it down or something like that. And then the questions get a little harder.
Steve Lewit: I like the suitcase. I like the suitcase one where they open the… What is that one?
Gabriel Lewit: Oh gosh, I haven’t watched a game show in a while.
Gabriel Lewit: Deal or No Deal, okay, yeah.
Steve Lewit: Deal or No Deal. Yeah, that’s a great one.
Gabriel Lewit: But yeah, Who Wants to Be… you had a lifeline, you had a call a friend for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, you had a few of these other things here. Okay, so what does Who Wants to Be a Millionaire have to do with retirement planning or investing, Mr. Lewit?
Steve Lewit: Well, the thing is, is do you know everything yourself or do you have to call a lifeline? Are you that reliant? Even on that show, they didn’t expect people to know everything and they gave them lifelines. We meet people that are very bright and they manage their own money, but they also have big egos. “I don’t need help. I don’t need a lifeline. I know what’s going to happen. I can predict the market.” And it’s like, “Well, we’ll see.” And they don’t win the million dollars.
Gabriel Lewit: I like that take. Mine was a little different, but I think that’s a good take.
Steve Lewit: What was yours?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, let’s say you got to 500,000 on the show. You had a very difficult choice to make. Do you remember what it was?
Steve Lewit: Take the 500.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay. You take the 500 or-
Steve Lewit: Go home or?
Gabriel Lewit: Or you try to answer the question and either get a million or get nothing. Right?
Steve Lewit: Yep.
Gabriel Lewit: So, it’s a risky, trying to make more can be very risky.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. Especially in retirement.
Gabriel Lewit: And the question is, do you need it, right? Is the 500,000, that’s a pretty good run, right? Do you risk the million or do you go home broke?
Steve Lewit: Well, I just had a conference with a client this morning, new clients and we’re doing their plan, and he says, “I’m really aggressive.” And really aggressive is fine, but we talked about income and that really in retirement income is your priority, not growth. And he was very candid, he says, “I can’t get this growth bug out of my system, I just want to make more money.” So he probably would’ve gone for the other, the next question.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, I just had a potential client I met with two, three times. Now he has a pension covering all of his income, so he didn’t need the income, but he came to me because all of his money was into individual stocks. And he said, “I really think I need to de-risk some of my portfolio, have a little bit more balance, the market’s been doing good. But yeah, somewhere in the back of my head, I feel like this run might be coming to an end.” Really that’s what he intended to do. That’s where we started. We had a couple meetings together and then he said, “You know what? I’m changing my mind. I think I got to keep doing this myself. I’m going to stick with the individual stocks. The market’s doing too good right now. I’m not ready to de-risk.” And he didn’t come on board as a client. Right?
Steve Lewit: Exactly. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: You guys all know that’s on the show, we at SGL Financial, we’re not stock-pickers, right? If you want an ultra-aggressive stock-picking strategy, which is about the riskiest type of investment approach you could have or one of the riskiest ones, that’s not really our forte, as it’s not really a sound retirement planning investment principle. And I think he’s going to end up getting burned from this, but he couldn’t, I think in his mind reconcile, oh, I’m going to leave some dollars potentially on the table by reducing my risk a little. And that’s what happens on the, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire show, these, “Oh, I got to get that million.” Right? “I’m going to get that million.” And you answer and then… Yeah, you just lost 500 grand. Okay, hope you’re happy with that.
Steve Lewit: We were talking about FOMO just earlier today.
Gabriel Lewit: Fear of missing out.
Steve Lewit: And that fear of missing out drives many, many people. “I can’t miss the growth. My friend made 12% and I only made 7.”
Gabriel Lewit: Well, there’s a rapper who’s got an album, Get Rich or Die Tryin’, right? I think it’s 50 Cent, right? I think that’s who it is. I do listen to hip-hop, so I would know why. But yeah, some people have that mentality, “I’m going to go for it all or go broke trying.”
Steve Lewit: So, I think what all of this says to me is that we really have to… not have to, but it’d be very beneficial to be very introspective, self-introspective in what’s driving me to make this decision? What’s driving me, how do I value things? What is my desire? Why am I so fired up about making an extra 4%? What is that all about? Because money can drive you nuts.
Gabriel Lewit: It could.
Steve Lewit: It’s very emotional.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, let me give you the last game show and then we’ll have time for a little bit of something else. Family Feud.
Steve Lewit: Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: What would Family Feud have to do with retirement or financial planning?
Steve Lewit: We are territorial in our thinking? I don’t know.
Gabriel Lewit: What was Family Feud? That was when a family somehow was up against another family, right?
Steve Lewit: Yeah. They would fight with each other about something
Gabriel Lewit: And they had to answer the question as a family or something like that? They had to be in agreement. It’s been a while since I’ve watched that one. Anyways. But yeah, families do-
Steve Lewit: I don’t have much on this one.
Gabriel Lewit: Families do feud I think is-
Steve Lewit: But how does this fit our financial podcast?
Gabriel Lewit: Well, they can feud over… Couples can feud over how they want to handle money or spend money. Families can feud over who gets the inheritance.
Steve Lewit: Yeah, I get it now.
Gabriel Lewit: Families can feud if there’s no will or trust. “No, Mom wanted this.” “No, mom wanted that.” “Dad wanted this way.” “No, he wanted me to have his car.” So I think it speaks to the importance of being in alignment with your family on important financial matters.
Steve Lewit: Which is not easy to do often.
Gabriel Lewit: And as opposed to waiting until the family…
Steve Lewit: Fights.
Gabriel Lewit: Fights and feuds over it in real time. So that would be our game show. Okay, so we had Price Is Right, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Family Feud. And who knows? Maybe we’ll do a round two of this at some point in the future with other games, maybe Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, we could keep going on. Wheel of Fortune, Roulette. There’s got to be something there, right? Anyhoo, yeah. That’s our game show recap for you today.
Steve Lewit: Fun.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. If you have of course questions about the planning topics we talked about or a game show you want us to turn into a financial metaphor for you, email us, info@sglfinancial.com or give us a call, 847-499-3330 or go to our website, sglfinancial.com and click Contact Us. Financial.
Steve Lewit: I’m thinking of all the games I used to play when I was a kid in the Bronx. I used to play three sewer stickball and I’m saying, how can I make a metaphor out of three sewer stickball or ringolevio?
Gabriel Lewit: The games you guys play. I feel so-
Steve Lewit: Deprived, you feel deprived because they were great. Especially Johnny-on-the-Pony.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Okay.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. These are great games that we’ll work on it folks. We will make these metaphors for you.
Gabriel Lewit: Did you play soccer with rocks?
Steve Lewit: We didn’t know what soccer was.
Gabriel Lewit: Oh man. Okay. I just thought this was an interesting one to round out our show here today. There is a report by a very notable retirement researcher named David Blanchett. Okay, he’s done a lot of really good research, done some for Morningstar and other places around his career. Anyway, so he came out with a study here that said, “Advisors say that they discussed these seven retirement issues. Clients disagree.” Okay, so what is this speaking to? There are things that many advisors think they are doing that clients say they are not doing.
Steve Lewit: Or they say they’re doing it because it sounds good.
Gabriel Lewit: Well, this was interviewing, or the research here was asking both advisors what they say they do and what clients say their advisors do and getting very different answers. So these advisors really did think that they were doing these things, okay. So anyway, so what are the things? Well, let’s talk about this. Okay, the first is RMD planning. This is a good time of the year, and this is also why I wanted to bring this up because this is the time of the year. RMD is required minimum distribution. If you have inherited IRAs, generally if you’re any age and you have inherited IRAs or if you are over 73, some of you was 72, but 73, you have to take money out of your qualified plans. It’s called an RMD, required minimum distribution.
Steve Lewit: So, I can’t leave it in there.
Gabriel Lewit: Correct.
Steve Lewit: It’s required
Gabriel Lewit: A whopping 97% of advisors surveyed said they talked with their clients regularly about how to handle them, but only 54% of investors working with financial professionals note discussing this with their advisor.
Steve Lewit: Amazing. Yes. Yes.
Gabriel Lewit: Almost 100% say they talk about this, 54% of clients say their advisor-
Steve Lewit: “I never heard a word about it.”
Gabriel Lewit: Say 50% say, “My advisor never talked to me about this.”
Steve Lewit: That’s kind of sad.
Gabriel Lewit: It is. And indeed, you’re going to get a letter from us or email from us in about a couple of days here, probably actually before you get this podcast email, talking about, remember to take your RMDs for this year if you haven’t yet talked about that with us. We do want to talk about it with you. You’re hearing it on this show.
Steve Lewit: Well, it’s part of our service.
Gabriel Lewit: It’s part of our year-end tax planning letter that we sent out. And it’ll be something we talk about in meetings that we have with you. So it is something that’s very important and one that we want to ensure you know about. Okay, next up on the list is retirement lifestyles. Okay. 70% of advisors say they frequently bring up how individuals will spend their time in retirement. Only 29% of clients note that their advisors ask or do anything about this.
Steve Lewit: Liar, liar, house on fire. Yeah. Why-
Gabriel Lewit: Liars, the clients or the advisors?
Steve Lewit: The advisor.
Gabriel Lewit: Okay.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. I mean that’s such an important topic. What are you going to do? How are you going to spend your time? How much money do you have? What’s allocated for this and that? Do you want to visit your grandchildren? I mean, to me that’s what makes our job fun because we’re helping people do all these wonderful things in their lives.
Gabriel Lewit: And this is referencing, it’s beyond just the money part, but asking, hey, are you doing things that are socially fulfilling? Are you doing things that bring you meaning and joy and happiness? We often talk about, yeah, money’s great, but what are you doing with it that is in alignment with your ideal retirement?
Steve Lewit: Well, that’s our slogan. It’s not about money, it’s really about life. Money is just fuel for the journey. And if you don’t have much of a journey, it doesn’t matter how much money you have.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Okay. Number three, protected income. 97% of investors say wealth protection is moderately or very important in their vision for retirement. Only 79% of advisors do.
Steve Lewit: Can you say that one again?
Gabriel Lewit: Yes. 97% of investors say wealth protection is moderately or very important to their retirement,
Steve Lewit: But the advisors don’t feel-
Gabriel Lewit: But far fewer advisors think it’s important for their client’s retirement.
Steve Lewit: I am not surprised at that. A lot of advisors are younger and they’re just tuned into growth and they think they can beat the world and they don’t see that part of the world because they’re still young and inexperienced.
Gabriel Lewit: Here’s a part B of that, 81% of investors say some form of protected lifetime income product such as an annuity would be helpful in their retirement plans. Only 68% of financial professionals say the same.
Steve Lewit: Yeah. And I would say that number is a lot… They may say it, but in action… Look, yeah, guaranteed income… Well, the data also shows that people that have guaranteed income through annuities live a happier life. I forgot who did that study, it might’ve been Blanchett actually.
Gabriel Lewit: Somebody did, yeah.
Steve Lewit: Or Wade Pfau. I think that was a Wade Pfau study.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So let me do one or two more running up on our time here, but tax minimization, 95% of advisors supposedly report delivering insights and planning on minimizing taxes in retirement. I’m sorry I’m laughing, but 64% of clients report receiving some level of support in this area. And I bet you if they asked even more specific questions about the type of tax support, it’d be even lower.
Steve Lewit: Well, we go through this all the time when we’re interviewing new clients. They’ll say, “Well, my guy does tax planning.” And I said, “Well, what does that mean? Did you see a tax plan? Was it written out? What does it look like?” “No, but we talked a little about taxes.” So I think the actual work on taxes by most advisors is pretty low. In fact, many advisors are not allowed to talk to you about taxes. Their companies prohibit it.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Now, we talked about the RMD. There’s a similar note with retirement income strategies as a whole, where no surprise, 96% of advisors claim they speak regularly about income withdrawal strategies with their clients. Only 66% of clients agree. And then last but not least, 84% of advisors say that they help their clients with budgeting. And only 62% of clients report getting guidance in this area.
Steve Lewit: Okay. Yeah.
Gabriel Lewit: Interesting numbers, right?
Steve Lewit: So, I think that just says, look guys, if somebody says they do something, check it out. Ask for an illustration of a plan. They say they do tax planning, ask for an illustration of a tax plan. If they say they do budget planning, ask for an illustration of your budget plan. “We do RMD planning.” Well, show me what an RMD plan looks like.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.
Steve Lewit: So go one step further and just don’t accept what they say. Ask for actual evidence so that you are certain they actually do what they say they’re going to do.
Gabriel Lewit: And I think ultimately working with an advisor, you should be getting all of those things we talked about. Budgeting, withdrawal strategies, RMD guidance, income strategies, you name it and more. And make sure that you are getting those services because if you’re paying, especially a lot of people are paying 1%, 1.25, they’re paying a lot of money and not getting the services that you could get at a lower price point with more value. So that’s always been our goal here is how do we provide comprehensive planning, guidance, and value at a lower than average, honestly, industry price point for advisory fees.
Steve Lewit: Well, most people are paying fees just to manage their money, which are higher than our fees. And ours include comprehensive planning. A little bit of an advertisement, but that’s the fact of the matter is that.
Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Yeah. So if you have questions on how we can help, what we do, any parts of what we covered today, give us a call. We’ve enjoyed talking through all of these items with you, having a little bit of fun along the way. You can reach us anytime, 847-499-3330 or go to sglfinancial.com, click Contact Us, or email us, info@sglfinancial.com anytime that you’d like.
Steve Lewit: Anytime about anything.
Gabriel Lewit: It is slightly possible we are not going to do a Thanksgiving episode next week. We’re going to see if we can somehow squeeze it in, but we’re closing short. So it’s a 50-50 at the moment. If we do not, for whatever reason, we are wishing you and yours a very wonderful, happy Thanksgiving.
Steve Lewit: My favorite holiday.
Gabriel Lewit: We are very thankful for you, all of our clients and listeners.
Steve Lewit: We are.
Gabriel Lewit: And if we happen to do another episode, you’re just going to get double thanks from us.
Steve Lewit: You will.
Gabriel Lewit: You will.
Steve Lewit: You will.
Gabriel Lewit: So, we’ll talk to you on the next show.
Steve Lewit: Stay well everybody.
Gabriel Lewit: Bye now.
Steve Lewit: Bye now.
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.
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