Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Any examples used are for illustrative purposes only and do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs and may not be suitable for all investors. It is not intended to predict the performance of any specific investment and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy.
Welcome to Reyna Retirement. Reyna Reyes has dedicated her career to helping people make small, smarter financial decisions. Reina retirement is all about breaking down complex financial concepts into language you can actually understand.
Now here's the co founder of American Federal Benefits Consultants, Reyna Reyes.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Happy day to you. So you know when you're on a road trip and you gotta go through the fast food, drive through and pick up whatever food for the family, and then you get back on the road and some kid in the back says, mom, I don't have my fries or dog gone, I don't have my drink. And you're like, what? We're five miles down the road or whatever. We are committed, we're past it, it's over. So after learning this from my parents, I spent some time out the window. And I'm like, hey, let me just double check that we have everything.
Even this morning, hey, we wanted breakfast from Duncan and they didn't put the hash browns in there. And I'm like, hey, it feels light, let me check it. And good thing, because that was like the best part. Like, that's what the kids want. Why am I even bringing this up? In preparation for retirement, you're at the window. You're making your choices. You're looking at all the things that you're able to do, whether it's life insurance, survivor benefit, health insurance, dental, vision, all these things. And then you leave the drive through and you go about your merry way and you're on the road to retirement or the road past retirement, because it's done now.
And then you realize, oh my goodness, I don't have the survivor benefit I wanted. I chose this insurance. And they're asking me questions. And I don't even know what this means?
This is a big reason to sort of hang out at that pickup window a little bit longer. These are reasons that it's worth having meetings. Doesn't even matter to me if you have multiple people. Just call me last so I can tell you the right stuff. Okay? Because you can't. I can't even tell you how many people they said, well, I met with Mike and he said this, or I met with this other guy, Brian, and he said this. It doesn't matter, Joe Schmo, you know, Pick a person's name. I met with all these people and they told me these things, but we omitted this or we failed to go over this or I thought they said this other thing. And that's very common. Don't feel bad. Retirement is a big massive fast food window of stuff and you can do all kinds of permutations. But once you go to pick it up and you're driving away with the choices you made, it's pretty.
That's it, right? You're driving down the road and there's not much. There's really not going back, right. There's some things we can edit and things like that within a certain time period. But what I'm getting at is it is a zillion percent worth having multiple chats, multiple reviews, talk to the people like myself and my team and then look at it for yourself. That's one thing that a lot of people actually don't do. They don't follow back up or they don't kind of review what we went over to be sure they actually understand it. It's a big difference between me telling you a bunch of stuff and it makes sense when I'm going over it and then the dust settles and two or three days later you couldn't tell me the difference between Medicare B and Fegli Part B. It just melds all together.
So I encourage to review your stuff, get your documents, be sure you know how to get your documents. What documents are these? It's your usual suspects. You leave an earnings statement or pay stub. Same thing, the list of stuff that you're getting paid for and the deductions coming out your leave is on there. Sick and annual things like that. Number two, Social Security statement. This is not a. Let me correct this Social Security estimate because you're not receiving the statement, you're estimating what that income number will be. And if you're underage, it's going to be your supplement. But that's why we need it. So we can actually do the math on what your supplement's going to be. What when you actually retire, if you're going to receive the supplement or obviously so we can plan for what your Social Security is going to be. And remember, we have to plan for taxes too. We simulate deductions or rather withholdings for those taxes.
A third one, tsp. Duh. It's an entire leg of retirement. Pension, Social Security, tsp. It's an. It's a whole world unto itself and it's common sense. Sometimes we even save that talk. So we can have it all by its little old lonesome because it kind of stands independently. It's like the cheese stands alone. The cheese stands alone. But it's like the TSP stands alone, but it doesn't really because it coordinates with your leg one, pension and your leg two, Social Security. But we gotta know what those are before making recommendations to tsp. And I can tell you that if you're watching this, you probably met with a advisor or a rep or an agent or a whoever that was ready to go tell you stuff about your TSP without knowing the first thing about what your income was going to be. So we've got to know what your current TSP situation is and then also what the options are, what you need. Do we need extra income? Are we more of a crock pot nest egg kind of person? And then of course, if you have access to your a retirement estimate, postal employees will call it an annuity estimate. Everyone else it'll be a retirement estimate from the GRB or a benefit estimate.
And that is a simulation from your agency of what that income is going to be minus simulated deductions. And we not, I like to use that as a baseline. It's not always perfect, but all of these things as a conglomerate go together to make a very strong retirement plan that we can be within a very small window of correction or of, you know what I mean, like really close to what that actual income is going to be. That is after tax tag and title. So that's the biggest difference that you know. You can look at the number at the top of the stub and it's gross because taxes haven't come out of it and it looks great but then you look at the bottom and that's a vastly different number. And we want to make the plan for the bottom number. That way it doesn't surprise you when it's different from the top. I encourage you go ahead and get scheduled for an interview with either myself or my team.
We take the time to chat with you. We will let you spend as much time at the drive thru window as you want to. We'll talk to you soon.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Reyna Retirement. With a strong commitment to ethical standards, Raina works hard to find the right solution for each individual or family who reaches out for advice. To contact rina directly, call 850-450-6500. That's 850450 6500. Or to reach the team at American Federal Benefits consultants call 1-800-872-8857. That's 1-800-872- 8857. You can also go online to AmericanFederal.org not affiliate with the United States Government. Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. These opinions are not intended as investment advice nor do they predict future performance of any product. All information provided is believed to be from reliable sources. However, we make no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of any statement. The information is intended to be educational in nature and does not provide a guarantee or specific result. All copyrights and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. American Federal Benefits Consultants is an independent organization, not a government agency or affiliation with the Federal government or any state government. The terms CSRS, FERS, FEGLI and FEHB are all registered trademarks of the U.S. office of Personnel Management. American Federal Benefits Consultants, agents, consultants or any independent contractors do not provide tax, legal or investment advice and do not engage in the solicitation or sale of securities. Consult with your tax advisor or attorney regarding specific situations.
