One of the things that I thought was really important as we've gone through all this information, is to go back and look at some of the topics of discussion and go, you know what, maybe I need to talk a little bit more about that particular topic. Or maybe we didn't cover this point. And obviously everything shot so at this point is tool too late? Or maybe not. So I went back in and put together what I call the top questions and answers. So we can cover this and talk a little bit more in a little bit more detailed fashion, some of these these topics.

Let's start with the very first one. Which one is better a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA? Well, first, let's talk they're both ways to receive retirement. But let's talk with what a traditional IRA is. Traditional IRA is where you save money into an individual retirement account. The money grows, you don't pay any taxes on it as it grows.

And then at retirement, you take the money out and you pay tax. Isn't it as traditionally the way people have saved incomes the raw, you put money into an IRA, a Roth IRA, the money is goes in after tax, so you don't get a tax deduction for it. The money grows tax free. And then at the end, you take the money out tax free, you don't pay taxes on it. So let me ask you a question. If you had a million dollars that you saved up in an IRA, would you rather be paying taxes on it?

In 1530 2030 years, would you rather have a tax free income, I would suggest that a tax free income greatly outweighs the small tax benefit that you're going to get on the front end. So if you have a good eight to 10 years before, you're going to need the money, I like the Roth IRA and I think it's the superior way to invest money. And right now they have the regular 401k and the Roth 401k that a lot of employers are offering and you can save in a Roth 401k as well. It's a great vehicle Number two, how much should I save for retirement? You know, pop culture finance really focuses this discussion on how much you should say? Well, it depends.

It depends on what you think you're going to earn on your money. And it depends on what your goals are. You see to me to get that answer. You don't just say, well, the standard savings is 10% of the standard savings is 15%. You have to go Okay, based based on my goals, what percentage should I be saving? And this is where sitting down with an advisor makes a lot of sense to figure out okay, this is the savings number.

Am I comfortable with that? Can I do that, and this is the earnings number that I'm going to have to earn. And this is where I got to be at the end of each year that leads up to the goal of taking X amount of dollars out. So it's not really so much about what's the savings rate. It's more about what's the savings rate to help you get to your goals. What do you think about physical gold?

I was, as I was driving up here today, I had satellite radio on and there was there's always great commercials there's always companies marketing and pitching gold as an investment. And they would even tell you that in this kind of scare tactics, which we've talked about in one of the teaching videos, so it's got to be you got to take that for what it's worth. It's all marketing. I like physical gold, and I like having gold in a portfolio. I would rather I would prefer though to see it be a very small percentage, it's a good way to diversify. I don't like physical gold as much as I like investments that mimic physical gold so if the price of gold goes up five or 10% the investments that mimic the price of gold go up five to 10% I prefer that because I think the fees are a lot lower getting into these investments and they're also easy easier to sell and get your money out.

So yes, I do like gold No, I'm not a big advocate of saying put 20 3040 50% like these these companies would love to see you do yes gotta remember they're making big Commission's off of it. And I think it's got its place, but it's a small percentage, just like any other prudent part of a portfolio. If I want to be conservative or bonds, a good investment, this is something that concerns me greatly, especially as we're shooting this in the environment that we're in. Just as a reminder, and I did a teaching course on this when bond prices go down, interest rates go up. when interest rates go down, bond prices go up, there's an inverse relationship. Guess what's happening right now, in the interest rates are going up.

And they're projected to continue to go up because that's really where the only place they have to go is up. So that means bond prices are going to go down. But what most people think, is that Oh, bonds are safe, conservative place to be. You got to remember that we're a world full of debt. And if you lend money to a corporation or lend money to a county and they give you a bond, that's what you're doing. You're lending the money.

Basically, you're giving them money. And you're saying you can borrow my money, pay me an interest rate over a period of years. And then I want you to give me my money back. And as long as they don't default, that that works, but there's a lot of very risky bonds out there and I wouldn't, I wouldn't be lulled to sleep that they're very safe conservative investment. Bill Gross, who's considered one of the the top bonds the fact that column the bond king of Wall Street, manages a bond mutual fund. And this just happened a couple of weeks ago.

And he is last year today 6% on what's supposed to be a conservatively based bond fund. In fact, in one day, he lost 3%. Now, if you are a bond, mutual fund investor, you're probably looking for conservative investments, that's not really too conservative. So you want to be careful. If I want to control risk, what are some strategies that I could use? Now I go through this and I talked about them being Plan B strategies throughout the teaching courses because I think it's extremely important to have a plan A when the market goes up and a plan B when the market goes down, will pop culture finance will tell you is that Oh, you don't make any changes, you just stay invested, you're in it for the long haul?

Well, I would disagree with that, because the market doesn't always go up, it goes down. And when it goes down, as in 2000 to 2002, if you are invested in the market, you lost probably over 50% of your investments. If you were invested in the financial crisis, you could have lost closer to 60% of your investments, let that settle in for just a second. So do you think it makes sense to have a plan B? And so what I would do is definitely go back to those teaching courses in look at the plan B investing. In fact, there's a teaching course that talks just about Plan B investing, so that you can start to develop your own strategy for what you want to do when things get dicey.

How big of a deal is it to manage expenses with your investments. Once again, this is pop culture finance and I want to take a global Step back. Obviously, the more expenses that you pay, the less return you're going to get. It's very simple math. So if you pay high expenses over a period of time, you're going to get less return. What are you paying expenses for?

And that's the big question. And this is what pop culture finance doesn't tell you. And I've gotten in there very passionate about this, because I've gotten into a debate. And here's the thing about debates with people is that I don't have to be right. I'm just going to tell you what my opinion is. You can either accept that as being ludicrous, or you can accept that as make sense.

I don't have to be right. I just know what i what i think is going to happen. Typically, you get people on this side of the expense, the expense argument is there, right? And here's the thing about money, and I've talked about this many times throughout the program, is that there's only one absolute truth when it comes to money. There are no absolute truths, because it's only opinion. Only I only you can go forward two or three light years later and go yeah Bob was right about that that was a truth, but I can't tell you what the truth is.

So it all comes down to what are you paying for. And a lot of times when it comes down to mutual funds that have higher expense ratios, you're paying for a risk prevention strategy. So in other words, let's take mutual fund a mutual fund be mutual fund day has no risk prevention strategy in it, but you're paying really, really low interest rate, excuse me low expenses, the financial crisis hits in 2008, you lose 50% versus a mutual fund that has a risk prevention strategy in it, and you are paying higher expenses, but you only lose 8%. Did it make sense to pay the extra half a percent just to lose 8% versus 50%. And that's, that's it the key of the argument that I think makes the faulty about just looking at everything from an expense level, but that's what pop culture finance would have you fixate on.

What is the biggest mistake that you see people making when planning for retirement really comes down to two things. Number one, they don't plan. Number two, they plan but they don't follow through. Number three, it's planning that's incomplete. As you'll learn, as I hope that you've learned, as we've talked through retirement planning has got several different metrics that you have in steps that you have to go through to really be successful. And then even then, it's it's it's a management, it's a management game, it's being flexible.

It's depends on whether you're in Plan A or plan B with the market risk. There's a lot of things that go into it. Most people and I can't tell you how many times I've put together a plan for someone. And then I'm sure that they went and got filed, and then we've never done anything else besides. Maybe mention it in the future. But you've got to follow the plan and actually be intentional about reaching your goals.

Why don't you like buy and hold long term investing I think everybody's a long term investor. But at the same time, I think it comes down to how do you define long term investing? I define long term investing is you're in it for the long term of managing for risk, investing the right way and do and actively looking over your investments. Now, pop culture finance would have you believe your long term investor, so the market goes up, the market goes down, but it always goes up. In fact, there was a Charles Schwab commercial that aired during the financial crisis, had this group of Charles Schwab investors, and they were all anxious about what was going on. He enters the room and you think, Well, here's a smart guy, he's going to really tell them going to ease their concerns.

And so they start asking all these questions about what do I do about loss and he says, the market literally says the market goes up, the market goes down, but it always goes up. I thought to myself, is that really all you have to make these people feel better, but that's what pop culture tells you. In fact, jump Although who I've interviewed on my radio show, two or three times, He's a legend of Wall Street. He started Vanguard mutual fund company in 1973 I believe and he will he'll get on CNBC and I have a lot of respect for him I don't agree with him I do have a lot of respect for him in his expertise and what he's what he's built over a lifetime. But he'll tell you don't pay attention to your statements don't pay attention to the new it's all noise Don't worry about it.

Everything will be okay. I don't know about you but losing 50 55% of my retirement polio retirement portfolio and depending on the long term to make it back up a little bit problematic. What I don't like about long term investing about buy and hold where you don't do anything you don't manage for risk or anything is that it becomes a habit. So you you have this habit of watching the market go up watching your investments go down, watch your money, your money go up, watch it go down over a lifetime investing so you've got locked into your brain always comes back. Well, maybe so but what if you need it? What if you get to retirement?

Like so many did in 2000, right before the bear market of 2000 2002, when the stock market lost over 50%. And they were tired, they went back to work, because they lost 80% of their money because they're just assuming that things are going to come back. So it's a mentality that I don't like it's a habit that I don't like that you develop over time. sticking to the buy and hold attitude, I think buy and hold works at periods of time. It's just not a solution to everything. What do you think about lifestyle funds or target date funds?

This is where the 401k industry is gravitating towards. And I think it's a mistake. A lifetime fund is based on an investment that is geared towards your retirement date. So let's say that my retirement date was 2035. Then I would put my money in a 2035 fund. Technically, what's supposed to happen is as I age it closer to my retirement date, then the fun takes less risk.

Paper kind of makes sense, the problem that I and then that's one way to manage risk, I can't fault people for doing that. I mean, that's one way it's better than not having a way. But what ends up happening is that the closer you get to retirement, your risk level may be a whole lot different than the risk level of the money manager and the money manager that mutual fund may be taking the infected document in cases where they have taken a lot more risk and lost a lot a lot of money. I'll give you a good a good case in point fidelity has these lives these lifestyle funds or target date funds, and they had this was back in 2008. So they had a 2009 target date fine. So if I'm in the 2009 fine I'm not expecting to lose money a be expecting you to preserve my money going into retirement.

Well, that fund I'm gonna be a little bit off on this but have fun in 2008 lost seven or 8%. To me that that's that's unacceptable. If you're that close to a year away from retirement, you're losing 70% of your of your investments because they didn't prepare for risk. So there's, it's it's also risk levels based on pop culture finance, I would suggest that people in their 20s are a lot more risk averse, then people that are my age, it's the darndest thing. But I think they've learned by watching their parents, that, hey, it doesn't always make sense to take a ton of risk. So they respect risk, which is healthy, by the way, which is good to see.

But yet, if you go into pop culture, finance, they want you to load up on the risk. So getting into a target date fund that goes out 40%, they get some goes out for 30 years, because that's your retirement age because you're in your 20s you're going to take 100% probably risk of the stock market that you may not be comfortable taking. So I think it's a flawed concept. But you're starting to see 401k plans have been for a couple years, gravitate towards those types of is investing in a 401k plan, always the right move? I spent a lot of time talking about this on one of the teaching courses. I want to mention it again.

No, it's not always the right move. But we're taught that that's what you do you put you go to work for an employer, you put money into a 401k plan. Let me ask you a question, though about that. At what point is this one account that you're basing all of your retirement on? Wouldn't you want it to be the right type of an account? There's some horrible 401k plans out there that I wouldn't invest my money into, especially with think twice if the company's not going to match or give you money for participating.

So the only the only benefit to putting money into the 401k plan is a greater tax benefit, which I could argue does not outweigh the con of a bad 401k plan. Or you have a you have a limited number. You also could have a limited number of investments to invest your money into. So don't get sucked into the notion that well I got invested into an 401k plan, there are other types of plans you can invest into that give you a more effective chance of making money. Do you prefer term insurance over permanent insurance? I think they both have their place permanent insurance is insurance for a lifetime.

It builds up cash value, it's way more expensive. term insurance is insurance that lasts for a period of time, say 20 years you're locked into a low premium than your 21. You're going to want to get rid of it because the jump 510 1520 times I believe that permanent insurance is more likely the choice for most people, especially young families, because they have a definite insurance need for a period of time, say 30 years, and they insure that and the bigger question is, how much insurance do I need? How much can I afford? If you said to me, Bob, I need a million dollars for the life insurance. And by the way people generally speaking people need a way more than they think they need.

Let's do that. Need a million dollars for the life insurance? And I said, Well, for permanent insurance, it will cost you. It'll cost you $700 a month. But for term insurance will cost you $100 a month, I would rather you spend the hundred dollars a month and get the million dollars in some kind of a permanent policy. Because at the end of the day, it's about protecting your family, not the argument between permanent permanent Do I need a trust or does a will by itself work?

We talked about this, but I want to come back around, especially talk to young families who have kids, you know, this is This question comes comes to us by way of the nuclear option what I what I returned, the nuclear option is what happens. What happens to your kids that both of you die and you go by it's a low probability, it's a probability. Do you want to leave that kind of risk to your kids? And so imagine a couple who does that. They have a will. They've got between life insurance home 401k they've got a million and a half dollars and they've got a 10 year old and eight year old at home who have no parents.

What do you think the chances of that money going to their best interest are when there's nothing to guide it? Now that's a will and a will is contestable by and believe me when wills or contestable, family members come out of the Woodworks, I've seen it too many times people die. surviving family members change. It's amazing when you introduce money into the equation, what it does to people. So a trust is different than that trust is you can set up rules inside the trust everything. If both parents were to die, everything goes into the trust.

And then there's a trustee that says I can only give money to the kids under these circumstances. So I know with our trust, and hopefully the the boys will never watch this, because they don't really know. But they won't see any any money until they're like really, they would see money for college but they wouldn't see a good chunk of money to 3040 and 50 because I don't want to ruin them by giving them giving them a lot of money. So if you can structure that, however, makes the most sense. For your comfort level, it's really it's a way to control how your kids get taken care of when you're not around there to benefit them. Now, if you're older, and you've got adult children, this makes a lot of sense too.

Because you leave no question mark as to what mom and dad wanted to have happen with this or that or this property or whatever. You stole it out in the trust and the Trust has to be it has to be liquidated and given property given out based on your terms as far as the person who set the trust up. How do I improve my credit score? We spent a lot of time on this and I want to touch base back with this and just pull out a couple points. The first one is, you don't need a credit score and repair company to help you out. This is something you can do to yourself.

It's not rocket science. They don't have the secret formula, believe it or not. It's one of those things that if you know what to do and and you will know what to do if you if you've watched to the teaching video, then you can do it yourself and nobody's going to care for that process more so than yourself. So it's really about going through and taking inventory of what's on your credit score, and getting things that can be removed and knowing when you can get things removed. So maybe, you know, things that you do as far as late pays, if you default on a credit card, those things stay on your credit report for a long time. But once you've once that thing on your credit report is served, it's time you can get it removed.

And what these credit repair companies will have you believe is that you can have everything removed, which not only is not is not ethical, but it's not true. And so once again, you go through that course you can, you can absolutely learn for yourself how to do it. I'm about to get married, what should we be doing financially to prepare? What's interesting to me is That the engagement period, a couple will go through counseling. And they'll talk about all these different things about getting married, and rarely do they talk about money. That's that's a topic that needs to be discussed.

And, you know, you want to know, you want to have a good idea of how your potential partner is oriented towards money. What do they believe about money? What What was their upgrade upbringing about when in regards to money? Did they watch their parents racked up a lot of debt? Did they have the tendency to rack up a lot of debt or they're careless spender? What's on their credit report?

I think it's a fair question. If you're getting married, let's let's look at each other's credit reports. And if you have if you have a someone you're engaged to they won't do it. That is a huge red flag. There's no reason in the world that you wouldn't show your credit report. But it's about setting up ahead of time during that the engagement period where everything is lovely and happy.

And then the real world starts we get married, not that you're not happier or anything like that. But it's the real world. There's different pressures and and that sort of thing. And you want to establish ahead of time and I talked about setting up values of what's your values together. And I will say this, that the millennial generation is doing a great job of this. I've counseled with many couples, and they're starting, you know, the millennial generation and Generation Z are starting to turn the tide of financial irresponsibility, which study after study shows this, and then people look at me like, Are you serious?

Absolutely. It's the they're the greatest saving generation. They are the probably the most educated and I saw a study that came out so they're better. They're better prepared for retirement than any other generation based on their age. What should we be doing financially in preparation for our first Child, I was having this discussion with somebody the other day and, and he said, you know, we didn't really figure in figure out what it was going to be like, once, once we had our first child, it was a big surprise. Financially, you got to know these, it's going to be a hit on the spinning plan, right?

So you really have to know the the nuts and bolts of Okay, this is going to cost this much more and be prepared for it. And if you have a spending plan, you have to know exactly what if we don't have the money available? What are we going to cut down on? What are we going to pull from to pay those expenses? So what I would do is I would sit down with friends of friends that you had that have had babies and say okay, what are the costs and get a real good idea of of the financial impact of having your first child, then if you're going to have a second child revisit that. What is the one thing I could do right now that would make the greatest impact on my finances?

That would be the planning process and when when we talk about planning process law I'll show you this a minute that encumbers that encompasses a lot of different things. But I think the very first thing that's important to do is where are you spending your money track where you're spending your money, get a spending plan together, which I talked through in depth, and that will make the biggest impact in anything you attach a value to that is a huge impact on your on your finances. What are some of the key elements of the insurance life insurance plan? What I find is is that people will go will come to me they go and they they'll they'll go adding a half million dollars life insurance. And then then I'll say, okay, what's the plan? I just need a half million dollars.

I should that should cover it. I got to tell you a half a million dollars worth of life insurance all all those sounds like a lot. There's not roughly eating covered the basis. So you need to know if you're leaving a spouse if you were to die. What kind of income would you want that spouse to have? What kind of income Do you have to replace?

You want to pay off the mortgage Do you want To provide for college you do you want this to provide for retirement, is figure out what that number is and go through the process of having a game plan. I think what's what's important is the ability to prepare your spouse for, hey, if something happens to me, this is what you do. small percentage of America does that. There was one dear friend of mine who passed away. He was in his 50s very unfortunate, and he had put in a notebook together, and it spelled out everything. All you had to do is go through the notebook and you found everything that is fascinated.

There's one thing that his spouse is going through the loss of another spouse doesn't need financial stress. And this is so easy to fix. What makes up a financial plan? This may blow your mind a bit, but this is what to me makes up a financial plan. And the thing that can be intimidating about this and I was meeting with somebody just this week and said you He was telling me that he went to a guy who calls himself a wealth manager and all they wanted to talk about was retirement. And I just thought, what season of life are you in?

Again, we're just trying to get our act together. And so great. Well, let's talk about the spending plan. I mean, you know, it's, it's about where you are, and you start to pick and choose over a period of three to five years. So you want to cover all these things, even down to one that I've added identity theft, what's your identity theft plan? What are you doing to protect yourself against identity theft, the vast majority of America thinks is wrongly thinks it's not going to happen to them.

It's not if you become a victim of identity theft, it's when you become a victim of identity theft that's going to happen. You just have to look at the statistics. The vast majority of people are affected by a compromised their personal information is unbelievable. The number of people the hundreds and millions of people this happens to on an annual basis. chances are it's gonna happen to you but you can't have a plan together. And that's that's part of it.

I am concerned, I'm going to get laid off what steps should I be taking? always talk about the answer to this being what's your shelf life? If something were to happen to you today, how long could you exist? without running out of money? And that's what you need to know. So it comes down to figuring out, okay, if I got laid off, first of all, what would my plan be spending plan B, what would I cut out?

What would we go down to as a family and spending that would be the first thing I would do. The second thing is figure out what your unemployment insurance looks like. Third thing is, am I going to get a part time job and work part time while I look for a job the other half to bring income in? What kind of income is my spouse bringing in with my spouse, go back to work. Figure out how much life that you have to get to make a career change. And this is one of the things you don't want to be doing.

In the midst of getting laid off. The emotions are high. You don't want to sit there and try to figure all this out. So this is why I think it makes sense Believe it or not, to have that plan B to know okay, if this happens life changes this is what we go into Plan B mode and this is what happens doing it in advance I think makes the most sense. Well that's a few top questions and answers that that may the server got covered some of it didn't get covered I thought it'd be worth either going through some of the detail or talking about some of these these items. And if you have a question for me, believe it or not, especially if you if you're part of this proved money project if you've invested into this, you can go to triple W dot ask Bob Brooks comm there's an ask Bob section, you can send a question and Yes, I do.

Answer every single one of those. Those questions that come in. I'm committed to doing that. It's a great way for you to get information once again, triple W dot ask bathrooms calm