SPEAKER 02 : 0:00

Welcome to Retirement Unpacked with Al Smith, owner of Golden Eagle Financial. You want a retirement plan that alleviates your fears about the future so you know your money will last. As a chartered financial consultant, Al Smith will help you find a balance between the risk and reward of the market and the safety of your retirement income. And now, here’s your host, Al Smith.

SPEAKER 03 : 0:24

Welcome to another program of Retirement Unpacked. I want to thank you for tuning in and I appreciate your listenership. I have some good information for you today and I’m going to start with talking a little bit about some things that are seasonal. We always talk about, and I know you and your family and friends and everyone else talks about New Year’s resolutions and they are the brunt of jokes. Biggest jokes, of course, are the people who want to get in shape and the gyms and the health clubs are all really packed the first week in January. But by about the first week in March, if not sooner, they are back to normal participation rates. But what I thought makes more sense is rather than talk about what I want to do to improve myself for this coming year, how about what can I do to help other people improve? during this coming year. And there’s a lot of things that we can do. And what I have found is if you have found a way to give back, to volunteer, to do something for the less fortunate, that not only do they benefit, but you benefit also. So I thought of some things that may or may not work for you, but I know I’ve done a few of them and they work for me. For example, It’s not hard to find an assisted living or a nursing home nearby because there are millions of older people who reside in those places right now. And they can definitely use volunteers. And if you have nothing in particular in mind, talk to the director and so forth and ask if you could come by maybe Sunday evening or just some other time when nothing is going on and just get a little cart and serve tea to the residents. It certainly wouldn’t cost much, some water and tea bags and so forth. But I have learned from some statistics, live-in nursing homes receive zeros in spite of daughters 30 meters distance than that. That may not confound that simple things that help out your neighbor, their entire drive or sidewalk. And if it’s the time there is no snow, someone’s or their driveway or you can rake their leaves. All ever used, but saber that or that help for someone who is a or an infirm often have to spend and really and a thing that that you can do because caregivers who spend long hours taking care of a family may their own and so does their mental health it can be rather depressing spent taking care of an elderly family can think about When I was married from my wife at the time, she was an extremely good tipper, and she wasn’t well-to-do, and she also hadn’t worked as a caregiver, not a caregiver, but a server or a waitress or anything like that. But the way she described it was, is it’s an easy way of, let’s say, if you have lunch or dinner or something like that, if you give a normal tip or a 20% tip, that’s certainly appreciated by caregivers, not caregivers, why do I keep saying that? Servers, that’s appreciated by waiters, waitresses, servers, as they call themselves. And if instead of a normal tip, you give a higher tip that’s a very inexpensive way to help somebody have a really good day and and that really doesn’t cost you that much more than a normal tip but it can you know kind of really make someone to feel quite a lot better Something that I learned from one of my clients who is in the health care field is that veterans, there is a lot of help for them to when they get at the VA hospital and one thing or another. But often when they have surgery, they have no way to get home. And normally following surgery, I’m sure you’ve all been to hospitals before when you’ve seen someone that you love dearly who’s just had surgery or something. They always wheel them outside in a wheelchair or something like that. But often the time that they’re released is extremely variable. And also, if someone’s had surgery, normally they’re not able to drive themselves home. And even if they were, they probably don’t have a vehicle there. So think about offering assistance, taking someone home who’s had surgery in a hospital. And the VA hospital is a good place to start. I’m going to get back in touch with this person with whom I worked who is retired from the health care field and he also worked for the va hospital about how how i might be helpful in that area because i know the city pretty well and i’d be able to to help in that area i certainly believe also hospitals in general do need volunteers and volunteers and in every capacity they need volunteers for helping people, volunteers for guiding people, helping people in all kinds of non-medical ways. You can learn that from getting in contact with each hospital. Also, if you know someone who’s had surgery or something like that, offering to bring them meals is a way that you can really help. Meals on Wheels is a really good organization that helps provide nutritional meals for the elderly, some of whom are not too well off and not well equipped to provide themselves with really good meals. So these are some things that you can do in 2025 that are going to help you to give back. And not only giving back, but I have found for people who get plugged into one of these activities, these volunteer activities, they get just as much enjoyment and fulfillment as the people for whom they’re providing the care, the service, or the help. Now, I’m not against doing some things that benefit yourself because there’s certainly some things that can benefit others and benefit yourself. Maintaining your own good health permits you to be in a better condition to help someone else. in different areas to help shovel someone’s snow. If you haven’t maintained your own health good enough to be healthy enough to shovel your own snow, you’re not going to be able to help your neighbor shovel his snow or rake his leave or sweep off his patio or anything like that. And what I recommend as far as exercise and that sort of thing is the first 60 days, if you have any equipment or anything where you can work out at home, do that at home for the first 60 days of the year. And then if you want to join a health club, that’s a better time to do it because then all the enthusiastic people who are crowding the gyms and the health clubs, that will have diminished. I heard somewhere that there’s a special day about the third Friday into January is when everyone has abandoned their New Year’s resolutions, which I think is humorous. You can run one mile every morning and I do that. I recently adopted a husky and he’s on a kind of a training regimen where he has his breakfast, runs and takes care of his business. And also running a mile is not very far. It takes about 15 minutes if you’re very, very slow. If you’re younger and more fit, it’ll take you only 10 or 12 minutes. And if you’re really fit, You may be doing it in about, you know, eight minutes or something like that. But the point is one mile isn’t dent in your day in terms of the time it will consume. But if you do that every day and if you add distance to it, then you’ll find your metabolism has accelerated a little bit and you’ll be just a little bit healthier. And if you do that mile a day, once you’re into it, two or three weeks, add some distance. Not enormous distance, but over time, you know, get up to two miles and you’ll be amazed how good you’ll feel. If you attend church, I highly recommend that rather than participating for an hour each week, find out how your talents and treasures and other things can be helpful to your church. Most churches have good programs for youth and infants and child care and families. Sunday school at all different ages and churches need volunteers. That way the same people aren’t teaching Sunday school every week and missing the church service. So find out how you can be helpful to your church. I know some people who All they do is take out the garbage every week after the church service because our church has coffee and snacks and things of that nature. And there are people who, without asking, every Sunday they’re sticking around just a little bit longer. to take out the trash while there’s other people that take care of the kitchen and the coffee and the snacks and all kinds of things. So if you’re looking for ways to give back and you attend church regularly, which I highly recommend, find out how you can be helpful and you’ll get some joy from that. I guarantee it. Another thing, and this is something that kind of serves yourself, but if you’re trying to eat more healthy and maybe you’re like me and you don’t have a large household, get one of those vacuum food savers so that If you have something like salmon or steak or something like that and it’s more than you can eat, seal it up when you freeze it because it will last much longer and provide you a snack for the future. And a big thing, read more and watch less TV. I’ll be around after the break with an entirely new topic. And think about your New Year’s resolution as how can I help other folks.

SPEAKER 01 : 12:07

Al Smith of Golden Eagle Financial is your key to ending the year on track. You need to take your required minimum distributions from your IRA investments before the end of the year. And if you have more than one, Al will help you figure out the smartest way to do that. Also, if you plan to convert all or part to Roth, it must be done by December 31st. Al can work with you to determine the ideal amount to convert tax-wise. Al is very accessible, and he can help you handle your transactions in a few minutes on a phone call to your carrier. He can make sure minimum distributions are sent before January 1st to avoid penalties. The larger companies get incredibly busy during the holidays, and often they hire new staff with less experience. So you want someone in your corner who has extensive experience. You need Al Smith of Golden Eagle Financial. Book a free consultation with Al on the klzradio.com advertisers page. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management LLC, a registered investment advisor. BCM and Golden Eagle Financial Limited are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents.

SPEAKER 03 : 13:21

Welcome back to Retirement Unpacked. Thank you for tuning in and thank you for listening about some alternative ideas to the typical New Year’s resolution. Eat more healthy, exercise more, that gets old, quit smoking or whatever it is. But I think doing something more positive can be helpful, especially if it involves other people. Join a club. Join a club. The club might be a reading club. Pick out a book, have everybody read it and gather and talk about the book. We live in one of the most beautiful parts of the United States, in my opinion. Join a hiking club. And you can do the hikes with people of similar levels of fitness and so forth. And there’s an enormous number of hikes that are anywhere from an hour to three hours within a very short driving distance of Denver. The same holds true for biking. There’s tons of biking trails. And if you’re a Christian and a believer, then be part of a… group be part of a Bible study to dive into the word and so forth another thing that you can do that I’ve been doing for a few years hold up a sign on behalf of the unborn the unborn don’t have anyone who can speak out on their behalf and even though Roe versus Wade was overturned the year after it was overturned. And since it was overturned, abortions have actually gone up. And I think holding up signs is something that you can do. And if you’d like to find more about that, we do it the third Saturday of every month at different locations between 12 and 1.30. It’s the third Saturday of every month, and in the three years I’ve been doing it, we have never had bad weather. In December, it was almost 60 degrees when we held signs near First and Steel at Cherry Creek, and we had 28 believers there holding signs. So that’s something that you can do going forward. to be of help and get some joy yourself. Now I’m going to change topics and we’re going to talk a little bit about a senator from Louisiana named Senator Bill Cassidy. He is a physician. There are a few physicians in the Senate and the House of Representatives. He was elected in 2014 when he beat Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu And they hadn’t had a Republican in that Senate seat since 1988. And he’s been quite successful. Both he and his wife are physicians. He’s on the Finance Committee, and he is on what they call HELP, which is Health, Education, Labor, and Pension. And the reason I’m talking about a senator from Louisiana is he’s been an enormous proponent of something called the Social Security Fairness Act. And you’re thinking, well, what’s that all about? Well, going back to 1977, there was a law passed called the Government Pension Offset. And what that did, it reduced Social Security benefits to spouses and widows when their spouse, you know, either passed on or divorced or something like that. It reduced Social Security benefits. under certain circumstances when their spouse worked and had a pension much like para where they didn’t at the same time contribute to Social Security. So the GPO or the government pension offset basically reduced Social Security benefits to spouses and widows. And shortly after that, in 1988, I’m sorry, 1983, what else was passed is called the Windfall Elimination Provision, which reduced benefits for the primary workers if those primary workers also had a period of time where they worked and did not participate in Social Security. Again, very much like PARA. And so essentially, there were teachers, policemen, firefighters, and different government workers who did not receive Social Security benefits because of either the government pension offset or the windfall elimination provision. But in any event, the reason I brought up Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is since July, he has been pushing for the Social Security Fairness Act that would repeal both the windfall elimination provision and the government offset provision. And rather than dive deeply into the details, I’ll give you some idea. The government pension offset, for example, let’s say if a woman’s husband died and he contributed to Social Security and this woman worked maybe as a teacher. Well, if she wants to get her husband’s Social Security benefit, she would have to sacrifice two-thirds of her pension. So in other words, let’s say if she were a teacher and worked many years and let’s say if her para pension were $3,000 a month in order for her to collect Social Security, she would have to lose $2,000 a month of her pension in order to collect Social Security under this previous highly unfair law. The windfall elimination provision, that essentially reduces the benefit to someone even though this person may have worked for 15, 20, 25 years paying into Social Security. But if this person also worked and was covered under a pension where he or she didn’t contribute to Social Security, then his benefits would be reduced. to give you some idea. Let’s say if a person worked 22 years putting into Social Security and then he maybe worked 10 or 15 years and participated in a para or some other pension plan through a governmental agency. These are our police officers, our teachers, our firefighters. Well, under this example, 50% of his Social Security. If he worked 25 years where he paid into Social Security, but also had this work where he participated in a pension as an alternative to Social Security, he would only get 65%. If he only worked 20 years and participating in Social Security, which is double the time that you need to be what they call fully insured. For that, you need 40 quarters. I don’t know why they call it 40 quarters rather than 10 years, but that’s the government Any event, if he were 20 years paying into Social Security and then for maybe 10 or 15 or 20 years into another program like Para or something like that, he or she would get only 40% of Social Security benefits. And I am a divorced person. My ex-wife worked both for the civil service federal government as a letter carrier and postal worker. She was also a postmaster. And even though she worked 22 years in the postal service, her pension only began at about $1,400 a month. So anyone saying federal workers from years past have these really high pensions, that might be the case now, but it wasn’t the case back then. And she also worked as a teacher for about 13 years. So her participation in the labor market did not involve being covered under social security but the social security benefits for a divorce a divorced person is you should be able to collect 50 of whatever your spouse’s social security is well because of her participation in these pensions and you add those up and she worked about 35 years And in spite of that, she’s not eligible for any of my Social Security until the repeal of this act. Now, to give you an idea how popular this is, the Senate vote, well, first was passed through the House of Representatives, and then it went into the Senate, which is, as I mentioned, where Senator Bill Cassidy has been pushing for a vote since last July. the vote was very heavily in for it 76 votes to 20 no votes so it was bipartisan very heavily supported and so that people like my ex-wife and like other people who paid into social security but because they also paid into another pension offset they were reduced benefits so this is a big plus it’s passed both the house of representatives and the senate and it’s just waiting for president biden’s signature once he returns from saint croix in the Virgin Islands. And I’m assuming because of the very high percentage of people who voted for this, it will automatically get President Biden’s signature. And even if it didn’t, 76 to 20 is way more than a two thirds vote in the Senate. So I’m certain this will become law. And once it becomes law, if you’re listening to me right now and this is something that affects you personally because you or a spouse has participated in para and you give my office a call because it will certainly be worth the conversation to come in and see how this might affect you. My number is 303-744-1128. And there’s no charge for an initial consultation. And if you come, I would suggest that you bring your statement from Social Security and whatever you have from a pension under which you were covered, because this is really important. This is a major change in Social Security. which is going to really help a lot of people. And the people it’s helping, they are working people. They are our teachers, our firefighters, our police officers, people who work very hard. And the nature of their work is they have governmental pensions that often don’t participate in Social Security. And again, so if this is something that specifically affects you, I highly recommend you give my office a call 303-744-1128. God bless you and thank you for listening. I hope you have an extremely happy 2025. I hope it’s your best year yet. Let’s continue to pray for the folks in Israel that the hostages will be released and there’ll be peace in the Middle East. And let’s all do what we can to make 2025 the best year our country has ever seen. Again, God bless you. Be here next Wednesday because I’ll be here.

SPEAKER 02 : 26:10

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