Aloha, Inspired Money Maker.

Thanks for tuning in.

If this is your first time with us, welcome.

If you're returning.

Welcome back to the Inspired Money podcast.

I'm your host, Andy Wang.

Whether you're building wealth, planning your legacy, or just looking to

protect what you've worked so hard for, the truth is this: wealth preservation is not a one and done project.

It's a lifelong strategy.

Markets shift, tax laws change, risks evolve, and the old rules for staying wealthy, maybe they don't hold up anymore.

This is not your father's retirement or your grandmother's retirement, right?

That's why in this episode of Inspired Money, we're diving into the Art of Wealth Preservation.

How to grow, protect and future proof your assets through smart investing, legal safeguards, tax savvy estate planning, and even philanthropy that pays it forward.

If you want to avoid costly mistakes, keep your money working for you and make sure it lasts for generations, you're in the right place.

Stay tuned because we've got an incredible panel of experts here to break it all down.

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Let's bring in our guests.

FIRSt up, we have Dana Anspach, Founder and CEO of Sensible Money.

Dana has dedicated her career to helping people turn their savings into sustainable retirement income plans.

She's the author of "Control Your Retirement Destiny" and "Social Security Sense." And she brings a wealth of real world experience to help people retire with confidence.

Dana, welcome back and thank you for always accepting my invitation so quickly.

Andy, glad to be here and really happy the timing worked out today.

So next we're joined by Jacqueline Schadeck, a Certified Financial Planner.

She's the host of My Money Mentors on WABE, an Emmy-nominated and nationwide TV show empowering young adults with financial literacy.

Through her firm, Golden Wealth Strategies, Jacqueline helps individuals and families gain financial clarity with comprehensive planning and insurance solutions.

She's been featured in outlets like CNBC and MarketWatch, honored with the Financial Planning Association of Georgia's Impact Award, and is passionate about giving back through education and community service.

Welcome Jacqueline.

Thanks for having me.

Excited to talk about my favorite topic, which is Financial Planning.

Right on.

We also have Kemberly ""KemCents" Washington here.

She's a tax expert, journalist, and former IRS agent with over 20 years of experience helping people make sense of taxes and personal finance.

A regular contributor to Forbes Advisor and national outlets like Good Morning America and Fox Business, Kem is also the author of several personal finance books, including "The Ten Commandments to Financial Healing." Kem, so glad to have you here.

Thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

Yeah, and just a shout out to the Financial Influencers Network.

Kem, Jacqueline and I are a part of that.

That just launched last month.

So excited to have some FIN representation here.

We have a stellar guest panel today with a diverse set of topics to discuss.

So stick with us with this group.

I promise that we will make this topic of wealth preservation fun and informative.

Let's start with segment one.

The traditional 60/40 portfolio once served as a reliable framework.

60% stocks for growth, 40% bonds for stability.

But when inflation surged and correlations broke down, it exposed a core flaw.

Risk wasn't balanced, just capital.

Enter the all weather strategy pioneered by Ray Dalio.

This approach doesn't rely on forecasts.

It prepares for all outcomes.

Risk is allocated across assets designed to perform during growth, recession, inflation or deflation.

Stocks, bonds, gold, commodities and Treasury inflation protected securities, also known as TIPs, are weighted by volatility, not price.

Risk Parity replaces blind allocation.

Alternative strategies like the permanent and golden butterfly portfolios offer simpler or growth enhanced models while preserving defense.

These frameworks aren't about chasing highs.

They're about staying solvent when others falter in a market where old assumptions no longer hold.

Resilient investing isn't nostalgia, it's evolution.

The future belongs to those who diversify by design, not by habit.

Dana for years I've seen headlines that the 60/40 portfolio is debt.

What's your take?

Have markets shifted and changed your approach to portfolio construction?

Well, they really haven't changed our approach, but we weren't, what shall I say, blind followers of a 60/40 annual rebalancing process to begin with.

So I think of the 60/40 portfolio the same way I think of as the 4% rule.

It's a broad general guideline.

It wasn't meant to be this rule that you follow to a T, like a stoplight or like traffic signs.

It was meant to be just, you know, these general guidelines that.

That help you gauge your direction.

And so, you know, looking and listening to the intro.

When I think about risk parity strategies, I'm a big fan of, there's a lot of different strategies.

It's very confusing for the consumer out there to hear, you know, bucketing and risk parity and 60/40 and all of these things and think that one is better than.

They each have their different purposes.

And we follow a form of risk management that is designed to protect the worst case scenario, to essentially raise the bar and say, when we look over a retiree's lifetime over 30 years, how do we make sure the worst case scenario is not as worse as it could be?

And that is, in a sense, a form of risk management.

It's a different way of getting there than the risk parity strategy.

When I look at risk parity, it's a little bit more focused on volatility year by year versus looking at volatility and outcomes over a portfolio's lifetime.

And so they are both risk management strategies.

There's a lot of risk management strategies.

60/40 with annual rebalancing would be a risk management strategy.

And I think it all comes down to being really clear on how you define risk.

What is the risk metric you're measuring?

Is it outcomes over a lifetime?

Is it outcomes quarter by quarter?

Is it outcomes over, you know, an annual volatility metric?

Depending on how you define that, that's going to lead to different portfolio strategies that best protect against that risk.

Jacqueline, what's your take?

Do you include alternatives or annuities in your client portfolios?

Dana makes some really great points that we have alluded to here at Golden Wealth Strategies.

So one of the things that I think we need to do is we need to zoom out and look at this big picture first.

Okay?

So first, for the average listener, you need to identify where you are in your investing journey.

Okay?

Because if we take the history and the reason why the 60/40 portfolio has been that gold standard for so long, this.

The history of this is there was a gentleman, William Bengen.

He came up with the 60/40 portfolio.

And so his research was done to figure out, as Dana said, what that 4% rule is.

Okay?

And for those who are new to this, the 4% rule is just how much can you safely withdraw from your portfolio every year without running out of money?

And so if we are in the retirement phase of life, which most of our clients are, and we're wanting to start pulling from our portfolio, we need to figure out how should that portfolio be allocated so that I don't run out of money one day.

And so the way that we do it at Golden Wealth Strategies is we've taken Mr.

Bengen's research and history and the studies, we've taken all of that information and I would say that we've added to it.

Okay.

And so in our process, once a client gets to the point where they're ready to start actually withdrawing money out of their portfolio, this is where we take a close look at.

Okay, does the 60/40 portfolio work for you or should you be in some other sort of allocation?

And so depending on where our clients are in their investing journey or will dictate how the portfolio is designed.

And so for those who are maybe a little bit younger or maybe a little bit more risk averse, maybe we have some alternatives in the portfolio, but it just depends on where the investor is in their investing journey.

Thank you for that.

Yeah, I think relating to the segment video, just speaking really quickly for myself and my clients, I think that things have evolved a little bit because there are more choices when it comes to different Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and different investment strategies.

So whereas historically at Runnymede Capital Management, we might have had a 60/40 portfolio, but then we'll tilt, right?

It's not 60/40 and just set it and forget it.

It would be 60/40, but kind of plus or minus 10% on the stock side.

So at certain times of the economic cycle, you're getting more aggressive, other times you're getting more defensive.

And when you do that, in a taxable portfolio, you could have taxable event where you have to pay capital gains tax.

These days there are tactical investment strategies.

If it's inside an ETF wrapper, may not have.

Well, it may have tax advantages where you're actually not triggering capital gains.

So I'll go to Kem, who is the CPA among us.

How do you bring tax strategy into the conversation when discussing asset allocation or diversification?

As a CPA, I work with financial planners, CFPs and other, of course, financial advisors when it comes to building out the portfolio.

And on our side, as a CPA, we want to make certain that what's being done is tax efficient.

So looking at whether or not it's in a taxable account or not, whether or not.

There could be some tax strategies at the end of the year, like tax loss harvesting, where an investor may sell off certain type of assets at the end of the year, underperforming assets just to kind of offset any capital gains.

So looking at all of those different things before, typically at the end of the year, that's really helpful when it comes to determining what tax strategies that we can work along with the financial advisor or CFP in this case.

So just being really instrumental with those different tax strategies.

How do you advise clients on diversifying without triggering unnecessary tax events?

It really does depend and actually the ball goes back into the CFP and to the financial advisors court because our responsibility is just to review, to work along with the financial advisor and to see whether or not what we're doing on our side will work for them.

So let me give an example.

It's not wise for us to say, okay, maybe you shouldn't have this type of investment or not, because it depends on their risk on so many different factors, the long term goals.

So that ball really does depend on the CFP, the financial advisor making a portfolio and us working with them to make certain that we are keeping taxes in mind as they build those portfolios out.

And I, I was thinking about, I don't want to leave like this open loop.

I'll ask all our panelists.

Do you guys, are you familiar with this Permanent Portfolio or the Golden Butterfly Portfolio?

I will confess that I've been at this for 26 years.

I didn't know.

No, I mean we're golden wealth strategies, but we don't implement the Golden Butterfly portfolio.

Our portfolios actually are typically called all weather portfolios.

Okay, so yeah, maybe not that well known.

The permanent portfolio created by Harry Brown, an investor advice investment advisor and author, introduced this in the 1980s.

And it's designed to preserve and grow, grow wealth with minimum volatility.

Some say that it's a little overly conservative, but his allocation is 25% stocks.

That's for growth, 25% bonds to protect against deflation and recessions, 25% in cash or short term treasuries, and 25% in gold for inflation or currency crises.

And then the Golden Butterfly portfolio, which sounds very cool, popularized by the financial blogger Tyler at Portfolio Charts.

It's slightly more aggressive and growth oriented compared to the permanent portfolio.

And that allocation is 20% total stock market, 20% small cap value stocks, 20% long term bonds, 20% short term bonds or cash, and 20% gold.

So together.

We've all learned something today.

There's also a Golden Ratio Portfolio that is a risk parity strategy put together, I believe, by Frank Vasquez of Risk Parity Radio.

And so there's all kinds of these golden portfolios that I didn't know much about before today.

I love it.

We're all learning together.

Let's go to segment two.

Estate taxes can take up to 40% of wealth above the federal exemption unless you plan ahead.

The current federal estate and gift tax exemption is $13.99 million per person in 2024 and set to rise to $15 million per person in 2026, indexed for inflation.

That's still high by historical standards, but Congress can change it anytime.

And state estate taxes often kick in at much lower thresholds.

Strategic trusts remain essential tools for preserving family wealth.

Spousal Lifetime Access Trust, also known as SLATs, move assets out of your taxable estate while allowing indirect spousal access.

Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts GRATs transfer future asset appreciation to heIRS at little or no gift tax cost.

Ideal for assets likely to grow rapidly.

An Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust, or ILIT, keep life insurance proceeds outside the estate so the policy delivers full benefit to heIRS tax free.

Dynasty Trusts protect wealth across generations, avoiding estate and generation skipping transfer taxes.

When structured properly, Charitable Remainder Trusts combine tax deductions, lifetime income and philanthropic impact.

Each trust is a legal IRS recognized strategy, not a loophole.

Done right, they preserve value, maintain control and honor your intent with exemptions still generous but politically vulnerable.

Timing and precision matter for modern legacy planning.

Kem, with your background as an IRS agent and tax journalist, are there specific things people need to know about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was passed this year?

So a lot of big things when it comes to the Big beautiful Bill when it comes to the state of course that the amounts are a little bit higher this year.

So that's something to keep in mind.

A second thing to keep in mind is determining how your assets of course are title upon death.

That's something also to keep in mind and I think a big thing when it comes to tax planning.

If you think that a state made taxes may of course impact you, you want to not only look at your portfolio, your investments, your different type of assets, but you also want to see how your tax also on a state level too as well.

Some states also have different type of taxes.

Estate taxes are and also inheritance taxes and may impact you.

And last but certainly not least, you want to think about step up basis and things of that nature that could really impact capital gains this year as well.

Elaborate a little more on the titling of accounts.

Is that beneficiaries or something more?

It definitely depends and also depends on the state too as well.

And it's actually more of a legal type of situation versus a CPA.

But it's a good idea to meet with an attorney and look at your different assets and see how they are titled, especially if you are in a community property state, whether or not it qualifies a step up basis upon debt and things of that nature.

So that's very important that you sit down with an attorney to see how it is titled because of course, especially if you're in a property in the state rented as community property driven, you may be of course responsible for different type of rules and you want to just make sure that you're aware of those things at that.

Jacqueline, what should people consider when using life insurance inside estate planning today?

Yes, Ms.

Kemberly was touching on some really good points there that stepped up basis.

I just want to highlight that because that is really key when it comes to your estate planning.

We kind of zoom out and look at estate planning as a whole.

My fear is that everyone who is listening to this is part of the 70% of Americans that don't actually have any estate documents in place.

You don't have a will, you don't have a trust, you don't have powers of attorney.

So we need to get those blanket baseline documents done first.

Okay.

But when we're looking at using life insurance inside of your estate plan, there's a lot of different things that we can look at.

FIRStly, we want to look at what your end goal is.

Okay.

So I'm asking my clients, what are you trying to leave behind as a legacy?

That's the first place that we're going to go to to get checked as a box when it comes to life insurance needs and filling that into your estate plan.

Okay.

So beyond that, there are other ways that you can use life insurance inside of your financial or retirement plan to help achieve your financial goals.

And the good thing about working with someone like anybody on this panel is that we can help you identify and and really flesh out what those goals are.

Because when it comes to life insurance, there is so much information on the Internet.

We know that recently that Index Universal Life or that IUL policy got really, really popular and I was getting a lot of calls and a lot of questions about it.

Now it's a great tool, but it's not for everybody.

And one of the things that we can do is look at the index universal life policy a little bit closer.

Okay.

What it does is it allows your family to get that tax free benefit after you pass.

Right.

That's how life insurance works generally.

But as we look at this as a hybrid policy, it's something that you can also use while you're living.

So when it comes to your estate plan and your legacy plan, I ask clients, do you want to be a burden on your family?

Do you want your family to be able to facilitate care or provide care?

Those are two different things.

And so maybe we utilize that indexed universal life insurance because it allows you to use it while you're living.

Right.

For certain reasons.

Retirement or what they call living benefits inside.

So critical illness, chronic illness, terminal illness, there's certain reasons.

We've got to read the fine print on that policy, but maybe that's something that you want to implement inside of your estate plan.

Okay.

So there is no one size fits all.

But I think the biggest thing I want you to take away from this is to actually get your documents down on paper.

On the PBS show, we actually highlighted estate planning and we sat down with an attorney based in Georgia, and he talked us through all of the pitfalls and the particular clients that we had on the show, the mentees, they had young, minor children.

And so we talked through the process of not having those documents on file.

So I would say that's the very first step that you need to take is getting these documents actually in place.

Dana, what are your thoughts?

Wow, I couldn't say it any better.

I don't even know what to add to that.

But I love what Jacqueline said about getting those basic documents in order.

I also second what Kemberly said about the titling of accounts.

And so, you know, some specific examples of that.

We see retirees who want to add an adult child to the title of their home, not realizing that by doing so that would perhaps prohibit that adult child from receiving what is called that step up in cost basis.

And so there can be mistakes.

I have a classic case that I talk about where, you know, a client, second marriage, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

They went to an attorney, they got a trust set up, but her primary Asset was a 401k plan.

And they never changed the beneficiary on that 401k plan.

Everything was supposed to be allocated, you know, 30% or 1/3 each to her husband and her two children from the previous marriage.

Well, the 401k plan defaulted to spouse.

There was no way to change it.

She passed away.

The husband did the right thing, distributed the assets, but he had to pay tax at a much higher rate.

And you know, those are just some small examples of, of things that can happen when you don't carefully go through and make sure that the titling and the beneficiaries actually align with your goals.

There's one other example that recently that came to mind.

We had an 84 year old client, she went into a nursing home, she owned a condo, savvy adult children that we were able to work with who realized that, you know, they had to pay a pretty substantial buy in for the care facility that she went into.

And rather than liquidate assets, which would have caused a lot of capital gains taxes, that they borrowed against the portfolio to do that.

And that allowed them.

She, she also, in an odd turn of events, had pancreatic cancer.

And so when she passed, they were able to get that step up in cost basis on those assets.

So the borrowing cost was about 70,000.

The tax savings that resulted was about 250,000.

And those are examples of how working with people like qualified professionals on this call can save real money.

When someone can help you navigate those.

Yes, planning can make a significant difference.

Anybody else want to add to the conversation?

I was going to say we were talking a little bit about what kinds of trusts you can use and those advanced trusts.

I will say that a lot of my clients are starting with what's called the donor advised funds.

And so what the donor advised fund is, is this is an account that you can open at a brokerage.

And the money that you actually contribute into that don advised account can give you that tax deduction and you can actually carry that forward five years.

Correct me if I'm wrong, really, but you can go ahead and make that donation to that donor advised fund.

So a lot of my clients who are at the required minimum distribution age, okay.

And trust me, I know all of us, we think we won't get there, we won't get to 72, 73, 75.

And then once you get there, you're like, oh, wow, I have a bigger tax bill than I was expecting.

And this is one of those ways that you can fill that gap is using that donor advice fund.

And so you can actually contribute that money to that donor advised fund again, take that tax deduction.

Now what you are doing is you are giving away that money.

So while you have the rights to know where that money is going to go, you get to dictate that you no longer have access to that so you can't send that money back to you.

So it is something that is irreversible.

But it's another strategy that you may want to look at if you really don't want to pay those required minimum distributions and you are giving at this stage in your life.

Thank you for that.

Let's move on to segment three.

Wealth without structure is a liability.

LLCs create legal separation between you and the assets you control, turning potential personal losses into isolated incidents.

Unlike sole proprietorships, which leave all assets exposed, a well formed LLC shields against both inside and outside liability.

One rental property, one LLC.

Add a holding company, preferably in Wyoming, and the structure becomes resistant to aggressive lawsuits.

Creditors face only charging orders, a weak legal claim on future distributions.

Risk is compartmentalized.

Assets are insulated, but protection isn't permanent by default.

Fail to follow formalities.

Commingle funds ignore corporate structure and the court can pierce the veil.

The structure crumbles.

Done right though, LLCs, holding companies, and series wrappers act as a firewall not to hide assets, but to preserve them.

This is not complexity for complexity's sake.

It's operational security for anyone serious about wealth preservation.

Jacqueline, when working with entrepreneurs or investors, how do you explain the importance of separating those personal and business assets?

It's very important not to, as the IRS calls it, commingle funds.

I don't want to steal the shine from Ms.

Kemberly today because typically I will refer them to one of our CPAs and say, hey, we want to make sure everything you have is in order, but it's important that you are not, of course, joining those funds together.

But one of the having a legal structure in place for clients is really key as we're going through all of their retirement planning.

So whether that means we need to implement some sort of corporate structure or entity or if we need to implement a trust for you, a donor advised fund, all of this helps you manage your taxes not only today but in the future because we're all planning for the long term.

Okay, let's turn to Kem then.

Kem, how do tax benefits change when moving assets into something like an LLC or holding company?

So first I'll say this is that a lot of people don't realize that just having an LLC doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be taxed different.

So let me give you an example.

You may be a sole proprietor and you may create an LLC.

Well, if you're a sole proprietor, typically the default, you'll still file the Schedule C as a sole proprietor Whether or not you had the LLC or not, whether changes comes in, is that you make an election as a sole proprietor and say, hey, IRS, I like to be taxed as an S corporation.

So I'll complete these forms submitted to the IRS and that sole proprietor now is taxed as an S corporation.

So that's why it's a good idea to say, okay, I'm an LLC, but how should I be taxed?

You know, sit down with a CPA and see what works best and what would actually reduce and minimize the taxes.

The second thing I'm going to piggyback off of Jackie, just as she mentioned, is that it is very important to not only make certain that you're keeping the personal assets separate from the business, but from IRA standpoint too, is that one of the rules is that if you are commingling, let's say you have a personal bank account and you're under audit and you have some co mingled funds, the IRS now has the right.

They can look at the business account and a personal account.

So now your personal account just got messy because now they're looking there because they want to see if any business income has been deposited.

So if you just keep that separate, that can help you a great deal, because of course, it can kind of limit where the IRS auditor will look at.

And so I think that's the biggest takeaway is that make certain that you are separating those assets, but also making certain that if you do have an LLC, LLC is more of a legal structure or protection, but you do want to sit down with a tax planner and say, hey, how should it be taxed?

That's a whole other story.

Great to sit down with a tax advisor before having problems.

That way you can do things optimally.

Dana, what do you look for when evaluating whether a client's legal structure supports their retirement goals?

You know, it's interesting because we don't work with a lot of business owners.

The typical client that we work with is someone coming out of corporate America who has accumulated money in their retirement accounts or they used to have a business and have since sold it or began working with us right around the time they sold it.

And so we don't deal a lot with entities.

But I can tell you from a personal standpoint, I have an entity.

I have several entities, actually.

And definitely we worked with our CPA to set up the structure.

We are an LLC taxes and S Corp.

And from an asset protection standpoint, I went through a lawsuit that began in 2012.

A bizarre situation had nothing to do with the client.

And it really woke me up as to, you meet the wrong person at the wrong time and you never know what's going to happen.

And so I had gone down a path of working with an attorney and really looking at asset protection strategies.

Now those can be relevant for high risk people who are entrepreneurs that are at risk of being sued, people in the medical profession.

And those are things I think people do want to look at.

And it could be simple things like fully funding IRAs.

I got in a conversation with a colleague the other day about non deductible IRAs, and they were like, why would you do that?

Why would you put something where now it's going to be taxed as ordinary income instead if you put it in a brokerage account, it'd be taxed as capital gains.

And I said, asset protection.

I want to put every dollar possible into those accounts that are offering creditor protection.

And then there can be things like annuities and life insurance that are have certain creditor protections depending on the state.

You have to always work with an attorney and understand your state laws, and then you can move up to things like limited liability, limited partnerships.

So I had gone and worked with my attorney to set up one of those.

Now they involve a lot of complexity and how you fund them and how you structure them properly.

And in hindsight, I don't know that all that complexity is worth it for simpler situations.

I think there may be simpler ways to get asset protection in place without the additional complexity.

But this is a case of each person working with their advisor, you know, understanding you hear this over from all of us, understanding their individual circumstances, their individual risk factors, and then figuring out the strategies that make sense for them.

Kem, any record keeping, best practices that you can share to help people to preserve asset protection and avoid IRS issues?

Okay.

One thing that I often tell small business owners particularly is that if you're keeping your books by yourself, sometimes we really just see that, right?

At the very least, I tell everybody, at the very least, this is so helpful.

Set up one bank account for your business only.

Use it for everything for your business.

So, meaning that even if you're just starting out and you don't have enough money to take care of certain expenses, always transfer money in and use that one account.

And that means that even at the end of the year, even if you didn't do a good job of bookkeeping, a good job of tracking your accounting and expenses, you can always go to that one bank account.

And the great thing about that, just like as what I alluded to earlier, if everything is that one account and IRS does audit you, they will not go into any other account because you had this one business account, all income has been reported there.

You made certain that everything was deposited.

Make sure everything was deducted or expenses were taken out this account.

That's another safeguarding.

Just one easy way to put everything in one place.

Even if you don't do any record keeping throughout the year.

Keep it simple.

K.I.S.

Yes.

Okay, so let's go to the Next segment.

Segment 4.

Traditional giving separates wealth creation from doing good.

The modern approach merges them.

ESG investing filters for companies that actively manage risks tied to environmental harm, poor labor practices and weak governance risks that can lead to lawsuits, regulation or collapse.

Impact investing goes further.

It channels capital into solutions.

Clean energy, microfinance, sustainable infrastructure designed to generate financial returns and measurable outcomes.

These aren't donations.

They are targeted growth strategies.

ESG aligned funds have shown stronger performance during downturns and reduced volatility.

Impact capital often enters high demand, underserved markets with upside potential.

This isn't values versus returns, it's forward thinking allocation.

The global transition to sustainable systems is underway.

Ignoring this shift is ignoring future opportunity.

The modern portfolio aims not just to grow, but to endure and influence.

Done right, it becomes a double return.

Profit and purpose, resilience and relevance.

Jacqueline, on My Money Mentors, you speak to younger generations.

How do you see millennials and Gen Z shaping the future of ESG and impact investing?

It's been exciting to watch this next generation become investors.

Right.

We had Robinhood, which came out, it's been almost 10 years now and has increased in popularity pretty quickly.

And so we've seen a lot of younger people get really excited about this.

For example, I was speaking at a young group, they were middle school, high school, it was a girls group.

And one of the girls, she was 16 and she started asking me very detailed questions about what a Roth account is and how to use it and how to start investing, which is way beyond, you know, the typical years for somebody investing.

So it's been exciting to see this next generation.

And one thing that this next generation is very interested in is this ESG investing.

And so with the sustainable investing options, one of the easiest things to do is be able to go online and find these either ETF or mutual funds where they invest in companies that are focused on sustainable growth.

And, you know, I'm excited to see how this plays out.

You know, this is a relatively new kind of wrapper, so it's been interesting to watch.

I love hearing that a 15 year old's asking you about Roth Iras.

No better time to contribute than when they have that first earned income that they can get started.

You make a good point about that because I had a client last week who actually she was a prospective client.

And so we met and she's running through her accounts with me and she tells me that her six year old son has a custodial Roth.

And they said, oh, that's interesting.

He's been working.

She's like, no, he's six.

I said, six year olds can actually work and earn income, but they have to earn income in order to contribute to that custodial Roth account.

So it's very key that they actually have some form of earned income in order to actually put money inside of that account.

Dana, I think that you're working with older clients since, you know, you have this focus on retirement.

Do you find that clients want to incorporate a desire for philanthropy or values based investing?

You know, we do it a little differently.

So rather than focusing on that within the portfolio, we focus on that with things like Jacqueline talked about.

The donor advised funds within using what are called qualified charitable distributions from your IRA, which you can begin as, as early as age 70 and a half.

And so allowing people to, you know, grow their wealth, in our case a more traditional way where the portfolio is specifically designed around a time horizon, a lifetime time horizon, to make sure that it can deliver the cash flows that are needed.

You know, we, we have a certain portfolio design that we think works really well for that and then allowing people to take the gains from that portfolio and contribute those directly to the causes that matter most from them.

So that's our way of doing it, rather than doing it through the, the underlying portfolio structure.

Yeah, that can make sense too.

Kem, have you seen growing interest in ESG from faith based or value aligned communities?

I would say more from faith based.

And I think just thinking about it, overall you find more people more and more not only thinking about just ESG, but given more impactful, maybe to a church on tithes and different things of that nature.

And also I was going to just add, especially this year, that might be important, more important for so many people with the changes to the Big Beautiful Bill, no longer can you get the EV tax credit, which a lot of people of course was thinking about the environment.

We're thinking about, of course, EVs, but as of September 30th, that's gone away.

And a lot of the credits that's available for home improvements and things of that nature, clean energy also going away this year.

I think a lot of people are thinking on their minds, what else can I do to support the environment and to be just a good citizen all around.

Are there tax benefits or incentives that people really need to know about?

I mean, you mentioned some of the EV incentives and Jackie talked about donor advised funds, but are there specific benefits or incentives that people need to think about?

I think it really does depend on your situation, but that's a lot of different incentives that you can look at.

Right.

And so number one, of course, determine whether or not that.

It really does depend on your certain situation.

And you do want to speak with a tax planner just to see whether or not you're able to itemize how you're able to take these charitable contributions.

Maybe you may want to do it on a higher level here in the state of Louisiana.

You also want to look at the state because we also have something where you can give to certain organizations that may meet a cause or something that's dear to your heart.

And you don't have to pay the state tax liability.

If you do that, you can do it in place.

So not only do you get the deduction on the state side and then also on the federal side, but then now it wipes away your state tax liability.

There's so many different ways that you can look at it and that's why it's a good idea just to sit down and say, okay, these are my goals.

What options may be available to me?

Anybody else want to add?

I will say I opened a donor advised fund for the first time this year because of some of the tax changes in the new tax bill.

So they are eliminating starting next year in 2026.

It's a half a percent of AGI.

You don't get to take the deduction for the first half percent of, of your AGI toward charitable contributions and they're capping the deduction.

So a deduction that would fall into the 37% tax rate will now be capped at the 35% deduction rate.

Kind of technical, but for high income earners now could be a great year to front load your charitable contributions.

You won't get as much benefit for the deduction next year.

And so that's something to talk over with your planners and your CPAs.

Well worth mentioning.

And one of the benefits of the donor advice fund, because you can time your contribution in a year that's advantageous to you.

So let's, let's bring it home and go to the last segment.

Getting rich requires risk.

Staying rich requires discipline, the skills that build wealth.

Aggressive growth, high equity exposure, don't preserve it.

At a certain point, the game shifts.

Capital preservation means lowering volatility, reducing drawdowns, and defending against sequence risk, the silent threat that can destroy a portfolio during early withdrawals.

Cash, once dismissed, becomes critical.

Bonds offer ballast.

Alternatives like gold and market neutral funds add resilience.

The focus shifts from chasing alpha to securing stability.

It's not about beating benchmarks, it's about protecting purchasing power.

Over time, losses hurt more than gains help.

A 50% loss requires 100% recovery.

That math defines the new rules.

Asset allocation rebalances, liquidity increases.

Diversification becomes surgical.

This isn't about fear.

It's about control.

Wealth is no longer built.

It's protected, preserved and positioned for longevity.

The mission?

Avoid big mistakes and stay in the game.

Kem, what tax strategies do you recommend for minimizing drawdown impact during retirement?

I think that one thing is that you want to think about the long term game early on, meaning meeting with the financial planner, meeting with the financial advisor early on when he's setting up the retirement.

So that when you get to the time that it's now time to start taking those withdrawals, you'll have a plan in place, how much taxes.

And you also want to make sure that you're doing it timely because if not, of course it could come with a large tax penalty as well.

So that's why it's a good idea to have that team early on.

And then something else that you may want to consider when it comes to that.

You want to determine what type of different type of assets when it comes to retirement, whether it be taxable, what is non taxable, how are you going to set up Roth iras and just looking at the whole game and determining once it comes to that age, how are you going to start withdrawing and how it does impact your taxes.

Dana, is there a turning point where you tell clients it's time to focus less on growth and more on preservation?

Yeah, you know, my ideal starting point is you would stay 100% equities until 10 years away from retirement.

And then you would start a very gradual approach of de risking along with looking at taxes.

And so that you're, you're beginning about 10 years away from retirement to align that portfolio toward that future tax efficient distribution strategy.

Now, ideally is one thing, reality is another thing.

So we find that most people come in about five, if we're lucky, maybe three, sometimes one year before they get serious about retirement.

We're always like, oh, if we just could have tweaked these few things a few years ago.

But you work with what you have, you take steps to make it more tax efficient.

You take steps to align the portfolio to draw down.

At whatever stage, you kind of wake up and go, oh, I really need to take a look at this.

Retirement is upon me.

And Jackie.

Jackie, what, what's your number one rule for clients who want to stay rich, not just get rich?

The video started off by saying that staying rich really requires discipline.

And it requires discipline.

It also requires some strategy.

Because my family, the reason why I'm a financial advisor is because we hired a financial advisor when we got money and then with poor financial advice, all that money was gone within about four years.

So it requires some discipline.

Absolutely.

But you got to have the right strategy in place.

And so when it comes to preserving your wealth for the long term and helping my clients who are in the pre retirement and retirement phase, I like what Dana was saying about, hey, we look 10 years out, start to reduce the risk, risk off table as we get closer.

But I will say that we do that as well.

We do that too.

But one of the things that we're looking at is answering the biggest question that most of our clients have, which is, is my money going to last me throughout retirement?

And it's an eye opening day for retirees to know that you're going to spend a third of your life in retirement.

And so we want to be very concrete about what we're doing here when you decide to tell your job, hey, I'm not coming back anymore.

And so we want to make sure that we're answering that question of how we're going to preserve your wealth and how your account should be allocated, how all of your assets.

We want to look at everything from real estate to your portfolios, whether they're taxable or tax deferred, and then figuring out how you can make Your entire portfolio1, give you the income that you need for the long term.

But to be really tax efficient.

I'm going to just go around the panel really quickly.

I'll start With Kem, if you could give one piece of advice to someone maybe five years from retirement, what would that be?

Oh, I would say someone five years from retirement, I would really just say review your portfolio.

And the reason why I say that is because I've seen many times, and again, this is a financial planner issue, is that many people, portfolios may be too heavy in equities, as Dana mentioned early on, and it's kind of like a fix it and forget it.

And of course, if something happened five years to retirement, they may lose it all.

And so I would say definitely, definitely sit down, meet with the financial planner advisor and then look at your entire team too, as far as beneficiaries updating that information in case, of course, something would happen during that period of time, especially if you set up those accounts early on.

Thank you.

How about you, Dana?

You know, the fIrstt thing that comes to my mind is really to be open minded about working with professionals.

I've seen so many posts around almost shaming people that they're not doing it themselves, or you're shaming them because they don't know more about portfolio design or tax planning or that you can do it all yourself.

And I don't quite understand.

We don't shame people for the kind of car they buy or the kind of house they want to live in, or, you know, for hiring a house cleaner or maybe for hiring a personal trainer.

So know yourself, if you love this stuff and you love doing spreadsheets and research, you know, you may be well suited to doing it yourself.

But a lot of people are not.

And it is perfectly okay to seek professional help.

It is worth paying for.

It does offer a tremendous amount of value.

And the closer you get to retirement, the more value that can offer in terms of just your, your mental health, your peace of mind, the, the sense of calm that you feel as you enter this new phase of life.

And Jaclyn, there's a couple things to look at.

Firstly, 70% of millionaires in the US use a financial advisor.

So I think some of the proof is in the pudding.

But the way that we put it is I like to think of it as your own personal investing Mount Everest.

Okay?

So think about your entire life and some of your financial journey like this, okay?

At the top of your personal Mount Everest is a little flag.

And that flag says retirement.

And so you have worked all of your life to get up the hill to get to this retirement flag.

You've been in the accumulation phase.

You've said no to all the fancy dinners, you've said, you know, the kids can't have everything that they want because you've been putting that money away or you've been investing that time and you've been collect, you will now collect a pension down the line, right?

So the goal is to get to the retirement flat.

Now, if you think about Mount Everest, you actually need a Sherpa to help you get up and down Mount Everest.

Why?

Because more people pass away going down the mountain than actually going up the mountain.

So once we get to that retirement phase and we grab that flag and we want to go down the mountain, we want to make sure that we get down safely, not that we trip, fall, you know, and have some hiccups that happen with our finances prematurely.

So you really want to make sure that you have a guide and you have support and somebody there that can help you so that you're not paying too much in taxes.

Right.

You're not losing sight of your portfolio.

Because if we go back to that 60/40 portfolio with William Bengen, his research shows that if you are to retire in the down market year with that 60/40 portfolio, you have a lower chance of success.

And we want you to have a successful retirement.

So it's really key that you have support there, somebody that can help you during that tumultuous time.

Dana, I just wanted to see if you had anything to add because before we went live, you were sharing that you're more of a mountain person than an ocean person, but you have real world experience when it comes to hiking the mountains.

I, I was, before we started, I was talking to Andy about a Mont Blanc hike we did.

So it's 100 mile circuit of Mont Blanc in the Swiss Alps this summer.

And so, yes, I am a mountain person.

And that's why I love this Mount Everest analogy.

It's beautiful.

It's so appropriate.

So I ha my hats off to you.

I love that analogy.

It's great.

And I just wanted to remind everybody that William Bengan was a guest on Inspired Money.

I, I was trying to look up what episode number and I can't get that on the fly.

But yeah, if you Google, what's that?

Yeah, I saw his name come up on your list of people you interviewed.

So I haven't seen it yet, but I'll go back and watch it for sure.

He was great.

So.

Yeah, go ahead.

He has a new book.

If you haven't read it, I just finished it last week.

I'm talking to him this Friday and I'M going to be doing an article on it, but it's really interesting.

It's technical, but it's, you know, there's the new safe withdrawal right now, which is a little higher than the old safe withdrawal rate.

And he tells the history of how it came about.

It's good stuff.

It's good to have that data driven evidence.

So thank you everybody for joining us today.

This has been a really powerful and I think value packed conversation.

One of my favorite takeaways is that wealth preservation is not about doing everything all at once.

It's about taking the next right step to protect what you've built.

Whether it's revisiting your portfolio allocation, setting up a trust, or exploring impact investments, it all starts with intentional planning.

So here's my challenge to you this week.

Choose one area of your finances that feels exposed and commit to addressing it.

Maybe that means calling your financial planner.

Maybe it's researching asset protection strategies.

Or maybe it's just finally scheduling that estate planning meeting that you've been putting off.

Small, consistent actions beat waiting for the perfect time every time.

So your future self will thank you, your family will thank you.

And if you found value in today's discussion, please share this episode with a friend, leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss a conversation that can help you become a wealthier and better investor.

A few more things before you leave.

I want to make sure that we connect on LinkedIn.

Find me by searching Advisor Andy.

I think I'm approaching 20,000 followers there, so I hope that you're among them.

If you are.

Thank you so much.

Inspired Money is created and produced by me and Bradley Jon Eaglefeather.

Bradley's behind the scenes during the live stream and he edited the segments.

Chad Lawrence does our graphics, animations and editing.

And last and certainly not least, I want to give a big shout out to our amazing guests.

Go follow their work and keep learning from the best.

Dana Anspa, CFP RMA.

You can find her@siblemoney.com and check out her book Control youl for Retirement Destiny.

It's a must read for anyone mapping out a reliable retirement plan.

Jacqueline Shadick, CFP AWMA.

You can learn more@goldenws.com I hope I got that website correct.

You can.

Or make sure that you watch her show My Money Mentors.

And that's her Emmy nominated show Empowering Young Adults with Financial Literacy.

Kemberly Chemsense, Washington, CPA.

I think she had to hop off for her next meeting, but head over to Kemberly.com and look for her book the Ten Commandments to Financial Healing for practical money wisdom.

Does anyone have anything that they want to plug or share?

No, you plugged it all.

I appreciate you.

Glad I could be here and wishing everybody the best of luck on your financial journey.

Thank you for that.

Thank you.

Yeah, I was just saying.

Yeah, I second that.

I just thank you so much for having me.

And one thing I would say, I'm starting a new site.

It's called Tax News to Go.

So all things tax is made simple.

Tax News to Go.

All right.

Well, thank you to our panelists for sharing the insights and their wisdom today.

And thank you, Inspired Money Maker, for joining us.

Inspired Money returns next week, Wednesday.

I think that's going to be October 1st, 1pm I'm juggling topics right now to see who's available.

I think the topic is going to be investing in yourself, personal development for financial and personal growth.

Whatever the topic is, it's going to be a good one.

Look forward to seeing you then.

Until next time, do something that scares you because that's where the magic happens.

Thanks, everyone.