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Jen Rezac:
It’s going to take some time before we can understand the true impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus on our communities and on our nation’s economy. And if you feel like you can’t find your footing in a crisis that continues to unfold, you’re not alone. So today, we’ll take some time and we’ll focus on what we can control and what seems like a world of chaos. Thanks for joining us today. This is Your Financial Compass with Chris Bulman, and I am Jen Rezac alongside. And Chris, I do want to point out here up front. We’ve talked about this a lot lately, but there are some different ways that you are able to reach people and connect with them, even though we are doing a lot of things virtually now and over the phone. Talk a little bit about some of those tools that you and your team have access to so you can continue working with people, even though we aren’t really doing business as usual anymore.
Chris Bulman:
Yeah. That’s a good question. And I and the advisors here, like many of you out there listening, have gotten used to working with a lot of internet technology and digital technology. Things like Zoom, or Skype, or FaceTime, things like that.
So we’ve been doing that actually for a few years now with clients because we, due to this radio show. And we’ve been on other stations throughout the Northern California area, as well as podcasts around the country. So we get to talk to people from all over the place. So we’ve gotten pretty good at using Zoom, join.me, Skype, etc., to do meetings and to share documents on the screen. Do financial plans, review, current assets, things like that. And it’s nice that you can still look someone in the eye from the little picture up in the corner, but also be doing work at the same time and not be in front of them. So I think that goes a long way to still be able to work. And again, I’m here in the office every day. But a lot of our clients, and prospective clients, and radio listeners, and podcasts listeners are anywhere around California or across the country.
So it makes it nice. As long as I’m making the calls at the right time. I once called a person, this wasn’t a Skype call, but I once called person who was a client and they were in Hong Kong. And I didn’t know it. And it was one in the morning or two in the morning or something, but they were nice about it. But it’s been good. The technology has been great. We wouldn’t have been able to do this for sure after 9/11. If you go back to that timeframe, you would have had to have a serious conference room set up. There was no iPhone. This was pre all of that technology. So 9/11, we wouldn’t have been able to do this. Even 2008 would have been fairly difficult. But we’re in a good spot today technology wise.
I think one of the questions a lot of people have really is how is this going to change the future of the world really, with air travel and for business, and business communication, and working with people. Are you always going to have to get out of the house to go do things face-to-face anymore? Especially if you’re looking to fly to China, or to Europe, or Australia for business meetings. Maybe you can save that $20,000 in business class airfare and do a lot more of these meetings virtually. And I think that’s going to be interesting to see how it changes the future for all of us. And some unintended consequences of this along the way. It’ll be neat to see
Jen Rezac:
It really will. And I hope we can get, some good will come of this as far as how we’re able to do things and how we can be more efficient, all of that type of stuff. There are some positive things that are happening, even though it can be a challenge right now. Chris, what’s an example of some of the best that you have seen in people in the last few weeks? I always think it’s helpful to really focus on the positive when people are feeling overwhelmed, or maybe just uncertain about the future.
Chris Bulman:
I think on the larger scale, I think companies that have stepped up to do manufacturing. Some that the president’s asked, some that he hasn’t asked, and some that are local here in Northern California. In Roseville, there’s 3D technology companies that are developing masks and different protective gear. I think that’s one of the neatest things to see. And I’ve tried to think about how we can do that. And we’re trying to provide a service just over the radio, talking to people through things that are happening. But also through emails and educating people on topics that are outside of really what we do here. Maybe what banks you can go to, with the CARES Act or with the payroll protection program. Different additional services that we can add. But some of the nicest things that I’ve seen personally here is almost every client that we call, and we call every client throughout this timeframe is the first thing they typically say is how are you guys doing? How are you doing Chris? How is your wife doing? How are you handling the kids at home? And even though they have a lot of money invested, the first thing that they’ve done, the majority of them has asked how we’re doing. And I think that’s been really neat to see that in a time of such almost chaos and uncertainty for folks.
They’ve been calm about it, they’ve been good leaders just even in a phone call to kind of step up and say, “Hey, we’re not concerned. We know that you have things under control. How are you doing? Are you handling everything okay? Are you staying sane?” And I think that’s been fantastic. And I appreciate all of our radio listeners that call with that message, but certainly our clients all over California and the country that call with those messages as well. It’s been fantastic.
Jen Rezac:
Well, I’m glad to hear that. And yeah, that’s a question you have to ask right now for those of us who are holed up with kids. Ha how are you doing mentally? It is a real challenge, Chris. You mentioned the CARES Act a moment ago. Is that something you’re getting a lot of questions about as far as the new legislation that was recently passed in response to coronavirus? Are you getting a lot of questions about that? Or what are people asking you about right now when they call you?
Chris Bulman:
Yeah. And we don’t get a lot of questions about that. Other than we try to reach out to especially our self-employed and business owner clients, to make sure that they have everything that they need. But that’s been another great thing. The information is flowing like crazy. I mean, I think you can’t even go to a website without there being a link it seems like to CARES Act information, or payroll protection program information, or COVID-19 information. So there is so much information. There’s probably more information written and printed every day right now, then all of the information written and printed in the entire history of the world up to say 1950 or so. It’s amazing how much is out there.
But what we are updating clients about and I think what folks have questions about is where is the market bottom? Should we be invested? Should we get out of the market? What happens if we get out of the market? Are we going to lock in the losses? And how do we stop the bleeding in our retirement accounts? Or people, especially the older we are, we don’t want to have large losses. And when the market drops like this as fast, and as quickly, and as sharply as it did, it’s really tough to keep up with it and make decisions. It’s almost by the time that most folks made a decision, the market’s already down 25 or 30%. And at that point, it really hasn’t dropped much more. So it’s swift and sharp, gains and losses. Depending on the day, depending on the news, depending on the news cycle, depending on what’s reported. Sometimes, unemployment reports come out in the markets go up. Sometimes, unemployment reports come out and the market goes down. Sometimes, all of the markets can be going up, but a statement is made in a news conference that makes some industries go down.
So it is a wild, wild time right now. And it’s a time where you want to have a plan in place and make sure that you’re not making rash decisions and sort of jumping the gun. And make sure you have someone to talk to and talk through with your decisions as well. So we’re certainly here for that. If you have questions about the markets, what’s going on with your portfolio. If your advisor’s not calling you back. We have heard that a lot, that there are a lot of advisors that are sort of hiding under the desk. I mean, it’s a tough time when you’re an advisor and people are, initially were pointing fingers at them. We’re here. We have multiple advisors here every day, Monday through Friday. We’re here to take your calls, and certainly we can help you with any questions you have.
Jen Rezac:
The number to call to reach Chris Bulman and the team at Bulman Wealth is (888) 373-2033. That number again is (888) 373-2033. And Chris, just talk a little bit about what goes into creating a plan and building a plan. I think sometimes, there’s some confusion on that. We might say, “Well hey, I have this 401(k). I have some money in this account or that account. So I think I have a plan.” Talk about the difference between having a bunch of stuff and what you’re talking about with having a plan.
Chris Bulman:
Yeah, that’s a good point. So as we build a financial plan, we take a look at all of the assets that one has. The assets can be anywhere from stocks, bonds, mutual funds, annuities, CDs, pensions, real estate, real estate income properties. It can be, a lot of us own timeshare. So we don’t usually make money off that, but we take all of those assets or liabilities. We put them into a plan and make them work together, with respect to what kind of income they bring, what kind of risk we’re taking, what kind of volatility. Inflation, taxes, our own personal budgets and how much we need to spend every year. And we put all that together in a financial plan that shows us in stress tests, what we currently have going to show us what does the future look like and what would happen if something like this happens, for example. Because this downturn that we are in now, it feels unprecedented. And it still may be. We don’t know what the future is going to bring over the next few months. But we know that the one thing, if you have it in your portfolio, we’re always going to reach a new high and a new all-time high. And that one thing is time.
So we need to make sure that we have the portfolios built to withstand time. And also if we don’t have a lot of time, we need to make sure that we have our portfolios built, that we can withstand the fact that we don’t have a lot of time. In other words, a lot of people, you’ll hear them talk about the history of the stock market averages 8% or 10% over the last 100 years, whatever index they’re looking at. But none of that matters. What matters is the timeline that you have left.
And so if you’re 70 years old and you’re listening right now, your timeline might be 15 or 20 years that you want to make sure that your money lasts and doesn’t run out, and you don’t have a big downturn with something like this. Or maybe you’re 40 and you’re listening right now. We’ve got a different timeline.
So again, it doesn’t matter so much what the market has done for the last 50 or 100 years. What matters is what we can withstand in the timeline that you have moving forward to and through retirement, to make sure that you have the lifestyle that you want, the cashflow that you want, the income that you want to manage the expenses that you have. And all of that is built in, baked in, and cooked into the financial plan that we do so that you can see what the future looks like in the best of scenarios, and in the worst case scenarios as well.
Jen Rezac:
Talking today with Chris Bulman of Bulman Wealth. (888) 373-2033 is the way you can get started on that planning process with Chris today. (888) 373-2033. And as Chris said earlier, they have all sorts of different options for how they can connect with you now, virtually or over the phone. But it just starts with a simple phone call, (888) 373-2033. Your Financial Compass with Chris Bulman continues after this.
Speaker 4:
With a worldwide pandemic and stock markets plummeting, now is the time to listen to a voice of reason. No fear-mongering or speculation. Just straightforward talk about how to retire during unprecedented times. Call Chris today at (888) 373-2033.
Speaker 5:
Who will help you get there? You’ve spent years working, taking care of your kids, saving money, and now you’re nearing retirement. Or maybe you’re already retired. Now, it’s your turn. You get to decide where to go next. Do you have a guide to help you get there? The team at Bulman Wealth Group have helped hundreds of families create their retirement roadmap. Don’t let financial limitations take you off course in retirement. Chris Bulman and his team wants you to have the retirement you’ve worked so hard for. Come in and meet with the team at Bulman Wealth Group. They’ll help you create a retirement roadmap that’s tailored to your lifestyle and long-term financial goals. Call today at (888) 373-2033. And schedule a visit. Call (888) 373-2033. That’s (888) 373-2033. Investment advisory services offered through Retirement Wealth Advisors Inc., an SEC registered investment advisor. Securities offered through World Equity Group, Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC.
Jen Rezac:
Thanks for joining us today. This is Your Financial Compass with Chris Bulman. I am Jen Rezac. Happy to be here with Chris. He is the president and founder of Bulman Wealth Group. Bulmanwealth.com is the website. If you’d like to learn a little bit more, that’s B-U-L-M-A-N, bulmanwealth.com. And Chris, today we’re talking about how to take some time, how to focus on what you can control in a world of chaos. We’ve certainly experienced that in recent weeks and months. Tell me how do you keep things in perspective when facing a challenging time or a crisis? How do you not let yourself just feel completely overwhelmed?
Chris Bulman:
Well the first thing we do, we run up and down our street. We live in a cul-de-sac, we yell and scream, and we get it all out. No actually, we don’t do that. But it’s important to I think put things in perspective and think about what you’ve been through in the past in your life with respect to maybe some of us are listening, we remember 9/11 very well, very vividly. Most of us can remember exactly where we were when that all started, and how it unfolded, and the feelings of fear and uncertainty, and anger, and disgust, and all the things that we went through. And then we can also remember sort of the healing process that we went through. At first, we would get on airplanes and we probably were a little bit scared. And then we had our eyes open. We were looking at everyone. We had our exit strategy. We knew which book or magazine we were going to grab to thump the person next to us if we needed to. We were thinking about a lot of things, versus just getting on that airplane, and kicking back, and putting on the headphones, and relaxing like maybe we do today.
So think about what we’ve gone through in the past. 2008 is another good example. It seemed hopeless. I can remember feeling like I was driving around Folsom, and Roseville, and Granite Bay, and Sacramento. And it seemed like one out of every three or four if not two businesses seemed to be boarded up and closed. And I mean, it was just stressful. But then we got through that. And I think one of the things that you can do is just envision what the world looks like two years from now, or three years from now. And make sure you’re looking at a good picture of the world. Don’t think that it’s going to fall apart and be anarchy everywhere. But if you look at what the world, we know we’re going to get back to it. I mean, if you look at the history of the 2018/19 pandemic. When that hit, we didn’t have anywhere near the technology, the science, the communication, the medicine. All of the things that we have today that we can solve problems so much more quickly almost immediately. In some cases, we have information across the world with what’s happening.
So we know that we’re going to get through this. And if you panic right now, you’re kind of ruining or potentially affecting how you’re going to come out of this. So I always like to look two or three years out. And I know that we’re going to be back to normal. There’s going to be kids out frolicking in the park, and people playing golf, and soccer fields are going to be full again. And basketball stadiums, and baseball, and football. We’ll actually be able to watch ESPN, and it will be actual sports again. A lot of us are waiting for that, just to have actual sports again.
And all those things that make us happy, they are going to come back. So we need to make sure that we do our best to stay calm, get through this downtime. I don’t want to belittle the fact that people are dying. People are sick, people are struggling. That is certainly true. And we need to be aware of that, and we need to care for those that we can, and support those that we can. And also wash our hands and stay clean. We need to do everything we can to get through this, the best that we can. But we also know that there’s better times ahead.
And by thinking about those better times ahead, you’re going to be driving your car somewhere in the future. You’re going to be going on a vacation on an airplane, maybe on a cruise ship. You’re going to be traveling. You’re going to be doing things. So rather than selling everything that you own, and going into cash, and being scared of the now, maybe we should be thinking about the future and how we’re going to come out of this. You can call us number one, or you can do simple searches on the internet. What were the top 10 or 20 stocks coming out of 2001, coming out of 2002? What were the top 10 or 20 stocks coming out in 2009? What companies performed the best? Where should we think about putting our money coming out of this event that we’re going through now?
So there’s a lot of things that we can do, as long as we’re thinking about the future. And we don’t let our emotions get to us too much now, while we’re kind of stuck in the house alone, we’re running out of groceries and toilet paper, and we don’t want to go to the store. All those things, we just have to get through this and get to that next stage.
Remain positive as much as we can. Talk to people, other people that are positive. If you find yourself in a group of … they say that you’re going to be the average of your five closest friends or your five closest contacts. If you find that the other four people that you’re talking to is just a reverberation of negativity, you might want to change your group that you’re talking to, because it’s not going to get better. So think about that. Find ways to get positive, remain positive, be positive. Manage your expectations of how are you going to get through this. How quickly is it going to turn around?
And exercise as much as you can in your home. One thing I’ve noticed, I don’t even know where this is coming from, but I’m getting all these texts alerts of yoga classes online, and fitness classes online, things that you can do to stay active. So all kinds of things are always going on again, with the technology available, with your iPad, your iPhone, whatever kind of smartphone that you have. TV. You can tune into something somewhere to stay active, stay positive, watch motivational videos. I love watching Lou Holtz, Arnold Schwarzenegger, any of these motivational speeches at college campuses or graduations, things like that. I think they’re fantastic. There’s a fork in the road right now. You can go negative or you can go positive. And I think it’s very important at this time to go to the positive route.
Jen Rezac:
Talking today with Chris Bulman of Bulman Wealth. Chris is president and founder of Bulman Wealth Group. Let me give you the number (888) 373-2033. As we talk about some of the things that you can control, some of the things that might be more worthwhile to focus on in terms of times like this. Focus on the positive, Chris says. (888) 373-2033 is the number to call. Again, talking with Chris Bulman. He is president and founder of Bulman Wealth Group. And he’s acting like he didn’t sign up for those yoga courses online, but we know you did Chris. That’s why you’re getting those updates.
Chris Bulman:
I wish I had time actually. the boys have been begging for things like that, but one of the fun things that we did this past weekend as it was raining and rained all day on Saturday was one of my sons, the golf course was still open. He played. The other four of us walked and trounced through the woods, the entire nine holes. And we found almost a couple of hundred golf balls. And it was like an Easter egg hunt. It was two hours long. It was fantastic. We had so much fun. Got some exercise, got out, got some open air. And a lot of things you can do if you look for it. I know depending on where you’re at and what week it is, you might be shut down more than other weeks. But do what you can to get some fresh air. And have fun, exercise, try some of these yoga classes or exercise classes, as long as no one else is watching you. Do what you can do.
Jen Rezac:
There you go. Well Chris, and you mentioned also it’s certainly a blessing. It’s a good thing that we have the technology we have. We have access to all of this information. But the other side of that is sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming with the constant updates on what’s going on with the markets, and everything that’s happening with this pandemic. There were days where I didn’t even want to look at my inbox, because of all the CNN and Wall Street Journal alerts. And it just seemed like there was so much coming at me all the time. How can we tune some of that out and know when to make changes, when to do something, and when to not do anything? How do you help us sort it all out?
Chris Bulman:
That’s a good point, some of the issues that you brought up there. And I said, I think it was about a weekend to this thing around probably third, fourth week of February. And I said I wish I had someone following me that could keep a journal of the daily changes, like the wind blows of how we feel, what’s happening, who it’s affecting, what country, etc. I mean, there will be plenty of books written about this. And I wasn’t able to hire anyone to follow me around and write all the things down that I wanted. But it is amazing what we’ve gone through from while there’s a pandemic, let’s go out to eat. And then wow, this is hitting us close to home. And then everything shut down. And all the different things that we’ve had to go through along the way. And I mean week, by week, by week it’s changed. Remember the first week that the toilet paper craze started happening. And we’re going to look back and laugh at that later. What were people thinking? All the things that you might need, toilet paper. Most people have a shower right next to their toilet. So ultimately, they could use that.
But you need to eat, you need to have water. But toilet paper. That was a craze. And then it got to currently, we’re going through sort of eggs, eggs are getting expensive. What are the other things that have run out? This will be interesting as this ends of how-
Jen Rezac:
Cleaning supplies. Clorox wipes and some of those things. Yeah.
Chris Bulman:
Yeah. The Clorox wipes and the hand sanitizer hoarding that happened. Basketball, NBA being shut down first and then NCAA, and then football, and racing, and F1, and every sport in the world. pretty much. To the talk of sports in arenas with no fans. I mean, it’s amazing the things that we’ve gone through throughout this ordeal, and that we’ll continue to go through as we move forward. So it’s been a wild, wild ride.
Jen Rezac:
Talking with Chris Bulman Of Bulman Wealth. I am Jen Rezac alongside. It’s certainly not business as usual in the way that Chris and his team are able to meet with people. But they’re still able to help. If you have questions about what to do with your money, if you’re not sure what to do or what not to do, you can start by picking up the phone and giving them a call at (888) 373-2033. That’s (888) 373-2033. And they can go over some of the different options for how they can meet with you virtually or over the phone. That’s (888) 373-2033. We’ll be back after this.
Speaker 4:
With a worldwide pandemic and stock markets plummeting, now is the time to listen to a voice of reason. No fear-mongering or speculation. Just straightforward talk about how to retire during unprecedented times. Call Chris today at (888) 373-2033.
Speaker 5:
Who will help you get there? You’ve spent years working, taking care of your kids, saving money, and now you’re nearing retirement. Or maybe you’re already retired. Now, it’s your turn. You get to decide where to go next. Do you have a guide to help you get there? The team at Bulman Wealth Group have helped hundreds of families create their retirement roadmap. Don’t let financial limitations take you off course in retirement. Chris Bulman and his team wants you to have the retirement you’ve worked so hard for. Come in and meet with the team at Bulman Wealth Group. They’ll help you create a retirement roadmap that’s tailored to your lifestyle and long-term financial goals. Call today at (888) 373-2033. And schedule a visit. Call (888) 373-2033. That’s (888) 373-2033. Investment advisory services offered through Retirement Wealth Advisors Inc., an SEC registered investment advisor. securities offered through World Equity Group, Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC.
Jen Rezac:
Thanks for joining us today. This is Your Financial Compass with Chris Bulman. I am Jen Rezac alongside Chris. He is founder and president of Bulman Wealth Group. Bulmanwealth.com is the website if you’d like to learn a little bit more. And Chris, I say it out of habit that I’m alongside Chris. But of course, we are practicing social distancing. I am doing the show with you from my house. We are very much following the rules here. And you and I were just chatting over the break as we talk about how the pandemic is impacting people not only with you and the way you interact with your clients, but of course people on a personal level trying to find different ways to keep themselves entertained. You mentioned taking your boys out to go do a scavenger hunt for golf balls. And my family live about an hour and a half away. And they hand delivered birthday cards to my son on his birthday. They couldn’t get out and see him or anything, but it gave them something to drive around and drop off his card rather than mail it. People are having to get a little creative with how they’re staying connected and keeping themselves entertained, aren’t they?
Chris Bulman:
Yeah, they are. If you’re on Facebook or some social media, you’re seeing more quizzes. People are throwing up quizzes of what are the top 10 movies to watch, or what are the top binge-watching series to watch? We had one, our good friend, little buddy five years old Sebastian had his birthday party. And it was literally, he was out in his cul-de-sac with his mom and dad. And cars would just come down the cul-de-sac and honk, and wave, and sort of drop off a gift. And that’s a birthday party that I think they’ll never forget. And then his dad had a birthday a week later, where he was supposed to have a golf tournament and a party for him. And he was turning 40. And poor guy turned 40 with nobody around. And my birthday is coming up April 28th if anyone wants to send a gift. Just make sure you wipe it off clean before you send it.
But it’s a weird, wild time that we’re going through. And the drive-thru birthday thing, that’s something I’ll probably never forget. I don’t see this as much with guys, but I do see a lot of people sitting around. Women, I say women, because that’s what I’ve seen some of my friends’ wives are sitting around doing Zoom chats with all their friends. And you have six or eight gals on one screen on a Zoom chat. Haven’t seen my guy friends do that, or else they haven’t invited me. I’m not sure which. But I will say there was a group at the golf course that they get together once a month on Thursdays, call it thirsty Thursdays, and they get together and just hang out and play dice or play games. And they announced this last Thursday, that they were going to do it via Zoom. Which I didn’t participate, but I was curious how that was going to go. Just a bunch of people sitting around with drinks in their hand by themselves, but at the same time with their friends. So it is a wild time that we’re going through. And another one that I love, do you have Kahoot where you’re at? Do you guys do Kahoot?
Jen Rezac:
Kahoot. I’m not sure I’m really familiar with that.
Chris Bulman:
So Kahoot is a really fun one that we’ve been learning. It’s basically a quiz game that you can play that the schools use it a lot, and we’ve began to use it at home. So we can basically invite all the kids’ friends, and family, cousins, whatever. And we all log into this Kahoot game. In it, there might be 25 or 30 questions of, my kids always pick football, or logos, or sports logos, or something. And I’ll pick history or geography. But it’ll have 25 or 30 questions, and you can go through them. And everyone has their own iPhone or iPad, or whatever piece of machinery that they’re on. The questions come on one screen, and you press the answer. And it’s a quiz game that you can basically play wherever you’re at with all your friends. And that is a blast. It’s K-A-H-O-O-T.com. And you can log in there and set up a game yourself. You can create a game, or you can choose a game that’s already been created. But that has been a lot of fun.
I have a whole crew just in my family with four kids. We played Domino’s yesterday, and it’s amazing how much … trash talking is probably the wrong word, but the right word that a five-year-old can talk. While playing dominoes. And the humor, you can all imagine a five-year-old’s humor and a seven year old. And I almost had to walk away from the game because they just wouldn’t stop. It was almost too much.
But the things that we’re doing now as a family. Some of the things I’ve seen as well, driving down the street, I know different parts of the country you can’t do this. But there are a lot of people out jogging, and walking, and walking their dogs, walking with family. And I think that’s fantastic. I hope we continue to see that and more of that, even as this all blows over. So wild times though, for sure.
Jen Rezac:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and when you talk about maybe an increased interest in your health. Sometimes Chris, we use big things like this as excuses. Maybe excuses is the wrong word, but maybe as a reason to not do anything and to put it off. I know when all these closings and cancellations first started raining down on us and the half marathon I’d been training for was canceled, I kind of gave up and didn’t really keep running for a while. And then it struck me that I don’t know how much longer that all of this is going to go on. But there’s no reason why I shouldn’t still be running. I shouldn’t still be trying. So I’ve picked it back up again. And I think there are some analogies there with some of the stuff going on with our money. People might feel like it’s too scary right now, or too much damage has been done. Let me just wait until all of this blows over, and then I’ll figure out how to fix it. Is that the wrong approach to take here? Or what’s your thought on that?
Chris Bulman:
This is a good time, especially with family to take the time to do things that maybe you haven’t been doing. Some of the things that we like to do for example at our house, or at least I like to do with the boys is we’ll get on YouTube at night sometimes. My wife typically reads every night to the boys, but I like to get on YouTube and just type in a city. And I can’t remember the city names now, but there’s some slums in India. And I love to just show from Slumdog Millionaire is where I learned about this myself. But I love to watch these documentaries online, where the boys can learn about different parts of the world. And understand that everything’s not this Folsom, Roseville, Granite Bay bubble that they live in.
And there’s some that you can type the 10 most difficult treks to school. And there’s kids that literally for two hours to get to school in China, or Bangladesh, or wherever it might be, the Philippines, they might have to climb up or down mountains, go across rivers on a rope pulley. It takes two hours to get to school. And we’re talking sometimes four and five-year-olds going with a six year old neighbor. And the mom just lets them go. Two hours later, they’re getting to a river trying to cross it on a rope pulley swing. They finally get across the river. Then they have to hitchhike across a highway 15 more miles to the school. It is amazing what you can learn if you take the time to educate yourself with your kids about different places around the world.
And one of the neatest things that I’ve seen as well is my boys, the stock market has been ugly for most of us, right? For our retirement accounts. But for young folks, this is a good time for them to understand how stock markets work and move, and how to understand stocks. And I mean, from the five year old, the seven year old, my nine year old, and my 11 year old, they all love to look on a computer and look at finance pages, look at finance apps. And track what indexes or what stocks that they like, and what they’re doing, and look at their own personal accounts and see how they’re doing. And it’s been really neat to watch that. And it’s been fun too, because the drops or increases aren’t near as drastic as in most of our accounts, right? So it’s kind of fun to watch what can happen on a daily basis in their college accounts or in their personal fun accounts that they have.
And I had a client, this is a great story. In the midst of really getting more involved with this with my kids, I had a client call. And he said, “What do you do for your kids for their investment accounts?” And we were talking through it and I gave him some tips of what he could do. And he said, “I don’t know if you can hear her in the background. But my daughter was telling me if I didn’t pick up the phone and call you, she was going to call you herself.” Because she had $22. And she thought that GAP stock was going to be a great stock. And she wanted to invest her money in that.
So I encouraged him to put maybe another $80 in, on top of her 22, and set her account up so that he can do trades with her online. And you can do these fun things with these small accounts with kids so that they can understand how markets work, how compound interest works, how you can make money, and how your money can make money. And it’s a fantastic time if you’re stuck at home for 24 hours a day, take a half an hour or an hour and educate yourself more, educate your children, educate your grandchildren. And if you need some tips or some help, give us a call here at Bulman Wealth Group. And we’ll be happy to point you in the right direction to give you some tips on how to do that.
Jen Rezac:
And that number to call is (888) 373-2033 to reach Chris Bulman and the team at Bulman Wealth. (888) 373-2033. One more time, that’s (888) 373-2033. Your Financial Compass with Chris Bulman continues after this.
Speaker 4:
With a worldwide pandemic and stock markets plummeting, now is the time to listen to a voice of reason. No fear-mongering or speculation. Just straightforward talk about how to retire during unprecedented times. Call Chris today at (888) 373-2033.
Speaker 5:
Who will help you get there? You’ve spent years working, taking care of your kids, saving money, and now you’re nearing retirement. Or maybe you’re already retired. Now, it’s your turn. You get to decide where to go next. Do you have a guide to help you get there? The team at Bulman Wealth Group have helped hundreds of families create their retirement roadmap. Don’t let financial limitations take you off course in retirement. Chris Bulman and his team wants you to have the retirement you’ve worked so hard for. Come in and meet with the team at Bulman Wealth Group, they’ll help you create a retirement roadmap that’s tailored to your lifestyle and long-term financial goals. Call today at (888) 373-2033. And schedule a visit. Call (888) 373-2033. That’s (888) 373-2033. Investment advisory services offered through Retirement Wealth Advisors Inc., an SEC registered investment advisor. Securities offered through World Equity Group Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC.
Jen Rezac:
Thank for joining us today. This is Your Financial Compass with Chris Bulman. I am Jen Rezac. Happy to be here alongside Chris. He is president and founder of Bulman Wealth Group. Bulmanwealth.com is the website if you’d like to learn more. And the number to call as we get back into it if you’d like to get on the phone with Chris and his team if you have questions, learn about some of the options for virtual meetings or phone meetings. If you do want to learn a little bit more about what’s going on with your money and moves, you want to think about making now, (888) 373-2033 is that number. Again, (888) 373-2033. Chris, we’ve been talking today about the fact that when a crisis unfolds around us, there are some things we can control and a lot we can’t do anything about. And that’s why it helps to talk with someone like you, who can act as a guide to help you find solid footing.
Now, one thing we can’t control Chris is the government’s response to a crisis situation. And whether that’s war time spending or emergency stimulus bills like what we’ve seen recently, we know the price tag for government spending is going to be high. And that’s not really a political statement. It’s just a fact that it’s an expensive thing. So we have to think about how that could potentially impact our retirement plans. What are your thoughts on what we need to be thinking about in terms of tax planning down the road or how some of this spending by the government could potentially impact us down the road?
Chris Bulman:
It’s interesting. We’ve been talking about this for years anyway, the fact that the government spends a lot of money. And we have a lot of debt. We always have deficit. And we pay a high amount in interest every year on our national debt. So with all of those things said, taxes almost have to go up in the future. Republican, Democrat, almost doesn’t matter who. Taxes are going to have to go up. This was prior to this pandemic. And now I think we’re going to see probably some big tax raises in the future.
One of the things that I always show folks in a financial plan, we’re going to be able to show you how much taxes you’re going to be paying in the future into retirement. One of the things that most people think, and we’re always told is once we get into retirement, we will be in a lower tax bracket because we’ll be making less money. So we’ll pay less taxes for the future. And the majority of folks, not everyone, but the majority of folks that I work with, it’s the opposite of that. You have social security. If you make over a certain amount, very small amount, it’s around $32,000 a year as a married couple. 85% of your social security is taxable. So you add that along with any other income streams you have, pensions. And then the money that you take out of your IRAs, all of that is taxable. 100% of that is taxable.
When you add all of that up, a lot of us especially if we have a pension end up making far more, or at least more in retirement than we ever made while we were working. And if tax rates go up as well, imagine how that’s going to hit us just to give you a round number. If taxes in total, state and federal were 33% and you needed $100,000 to live on, you would have to pull out roughly let’s say $150,000. If it were a flat tax, 150,000 to pay a third of it in taxes so you could live on off 100. Well, what if taxes went up? I don’t know half, let’s say up to 50%. Now you have to pull out 200,000 to live on 100,000. So it really becomes evident.
And by the way, before I go down that path, if you just Google. Look into the history of tax brackets. We are near the historical low right now in taxes. If we think that they’re going to go up anywhere near what they used to be, we’ve had the highest tax bracket up as high as 70 and 90%. So if we go back up to anywhere near that, that means the middle and lower tax brackets are going to be up in the 30, and 40, and 50, and probably 60% range. So if we go down that road, where would you like to have your income coming? You would like to have it as tax-free income. Correct? So this might be a great opportunity better than ever before, while the stock market’s down, to convert those traditional qualified accounts. In other words, a traditional IRA or 401(k) if we can to convert those now at a lower tax bracket into Roth accounts. So that as taxes go up in the future, and as our portfolio goes back up, all of the income we take from that will be tax-free. So there’s one thing that we can do.
Also, there are other investments, if we’re looking to invest for the future. For a lot of folks that are high income earners and have pensions, they’re going to have too much money in retirement. And when I say too much, if you have to take income and it’s over what you need, then I would say it’s too much. It’s not too much money, too much wealth, but it’s too much income. And what I mean by that is you have to take the income, pay taxes on it, just to turn around and put it back into the bank or into a brokerage account. So sometimes, we’ll see folks that get age 72. Everything’s paid off. They don’t need that much money. They might need 70, or 80, or $100,000. But their income is over $300,000 a year. So they ended up still paying over 100 to $150,000 in taxes in a situation where they have no write-offs. And had they planned differently five, 10, 15, 20 years ago, or right now in this situation that we’re in, we can curb some of those taxes for the future. So those are some of the things that I would be thinking about.
I would also be thinking when you look at volatility, just look at the history of the Dow Jones. Look at the history of the S&P 500, the Small Cap Index, Mid Cap Index, any of the indexes that you want to look at. Look at the history. They typically will always go up and down like a yo-yo. Sometimes they go way up and way down. Other times, it’s just sort of up and down. But that’s how markets work. But again, as we talked about in the first segment, if you have time on your side, they will always come back to a new high.
Now if we don’t have time on our side, then we want to make sure we have protections in place. And we want to make sure we have guarantees in place. We want to make sure we have maybe even guaranteed income in place. So there are a lot of things you can be taking advantage of right now with the time that you have sitting at home to be learning, and reading. And give us a call. We’ll be happy to do that financial plan for you, and with you, and help you to understand the risk inherent in your current portfolio. And maybe some other options, other directions you can take to do better for the future. And I think it’s a great time and a great opportunity to take stock of what you have. Didn’t mean to make a play on words, but take stock of what you have. And really investigate the future and what you can do to come out better on the other side of this pandemic.
Jen Rezac:
The number to call to reach Chris and the team at Bulman Wealth is (888) 373-2033. Again, that number is (888) 373-2033. Chris, when we look at what tax policies could potentially be down the road, as we think that taxes are likely to go back up, I think about this pandemic as this started to unfold. And the status of the markets and the number of cases, it was just changing almost hourly. I felt like there were so many constant updates. And I think about the number of changes and the number of updates, just in a couple of weeks. And how much things changed so quickly for so many people across this country. How do you plan for all the things that could happen over 20 or 30 years in retirement, if we’re looking back at the last few months as an example, of drastic changes and things that are happening in our life?
Chris Bulman:
Yeah, that’s a good question. And I think more now than ever, building some guarantees into your retirement can be helpful, number one. And it can help you to get through. There will be another time like this. I don’t know if it will be a global pandemic, it’ll be a war, it’ll be an economic. Whatever it might be, there will be another one of these probably in the next 10 years. I mean, if you look back just in the last 20 years from the year 2000 to 2020, we’ve had three major market declines, three major times that we were all stressed out, not knowing if it would end, when it would end, what would happen next. And there will be a next one as well. So use this opportunity to build your portfolio so that you can withstand that. And I think one of the things you can do is build some guarantees in.
Sometimes, what we look at with folks is let’s say a 60 year old comes in. And we build a financial plan. What we may do is take whatever amount of income they need for the next 10 years. We have social security and maybe a pension, and whatever income they need for the next 10 years. We’ll have that total amount set aside in an account that’s guaranteed that they can’t lose any money. And then we can begin to use another portion of that money for maybe a 10 to 20 year bucket. And another portion of that money that we won’t need to touch for at least 20 years. So we use different levels of risk and different guarantees for each account, knowing that we’ll never have to worry about income if we build portfolios that way. So the folks that have portfolios like that right now, they don’t like the fact that their 10 or 20 year bucket is down right now. But at the same time, they have zero to worry about for years, and years, and years to come because all of their income is guaranteed that they’re going to need for the next several years.
And what do we know about 10 years from now? We know that the market’s going to go up and down, but it will be higher 10 years from now than it is today. Typically. So if we’re looking at it that way, we’ve got time to grow the majority of the assets or half the assets, depending on how many assets we have, while we’re guaranteeing what we need for the next five or 10 years. So if you know how to build portfolios and you know how to build an income stream, there’s 1,000 different ways to do it. But if you want to build it so that you don’t lose your mind as you’re entering into retirement, a lot of that will be due to how you build your portfolio. And some of you are listening right now and you are retired, and you can agree with me right now. Depending on how you have your money, we have some folks that were totally in cash because they didn’t want to lose any money. We have some folks that it always amazed me when they come in and they say, “As long as you don’t lose any money, then we want to hire you.” So there are investments for that.
And other folks, they say, “We don’t mind if we drop 30%, as long as we average 8 or 10% over time.” Well, all of a sudden when the market’s dropped 30%, some of us change our view on that. And we make promises to ourselves that as soon as we dig out of this hole, which we know we will, we’re going to change our strategy. We’re going to build some guarantees.
When I say guarantees by the way Jen, we’re talking about you can actually guarantee an income stream for the rest of your life that will never go down. You can build your own pension into your retirement. You can guarantee that you run out of life before you run out of income. And you always have an enough income for the rest of your life. We can build guarantees that no matter what happens in the stock market, that your account’s not going to go down. And you get to participate when the markets go up. So there are a lot of different guarantees, different things that you can add to your portfolio. Depending on your timeframe, depending on your risk tolerance, your time horizon, and your goals, that are going to make sense for you and your family, legacy planning, all the things that go into a financial plan.
So those are the things. If you have questions revolving around those, we’re here at Bulman Wealth Group to help, and you can email us at info@bulmanwealth.com, or you can give us a call as well at (888) 373-2033. And be happy to answer any questions that you have or point you in the right direction. And we’d love to help in such a crazy time right now. Just know that we’re all here to help you. And it’s not a big sale. If you call us, we’re not going to be trying to sell something to you. We’re going to point you in the right direction, get you the information you need so that you can make the best decisions possible for your retirement going forward.
Jen Rezac:
That number again, (888) 373-2033 to reach Chris Bulman and the team at Bulman Wealth. (888) 373-2033. Be sure to tune in again next time for more insights from Chris. I’m Jen Rezac. We’re glad you spent some time with us here today. We hope you have a great week. We hope you stay healthy, and we’ll talk to you next time.
Investment advisory services offered through Retirement Wealth Advisors Inc., an SEC registered investment advisor. Securities offered through World Equity Group Inc. member FINRA and SIPC. Bulman Wealth Group and Retirement Wealth Advisors are separate entities and are not owned or controlled by World Equity Group Inc.
Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Any references to protection, safety, or lifetime income generally refer to fixed insurance products, never securities or investments. Insurance guarantees are backed by the financial strength and claims paying abilities of the issuing carrier. This radio show is intended for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be used as the sole basis for financial decisions, nor should it be construed as advice designed to meet the particular needs of an individual’s situation.
Bulman Wealth is not permitted to offer, and no statement made during this show shall constitute tax or legal advice. Our firm is not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. government or any governmental agency. The information and opinions contained herein provided by third parties have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed by Bulman Wealth. This radio show is a paid placement.
