What is the Retirement Podcast Network? ft Taylor Schulte and Benjamin Brandt (EP.147)

0:28We all need to make smart decisions with our money. Brandt, who are co-founders of the Retirement Podcast Network. So we're going to give you a little of a behind the scenes look into why and how we started the Retirement Podcast Network, while also riffing on some of the bigger retirement pain points people face. As always, you can find full show notes and links to all sorts of resources at thelongterminvestor.com. And without further ado, here is my conversation with Taylor Schulte and Benjamin Brandt.

1:01Ben Brandt, Taylor Schulte, welcome to The Long-Term Investor. Thanks for having us. Excited to be here. Yeah, thanks for having us. This is great. I invited you both on the show as fellow co-founders of the Retirement Podcast Network. And a lot of my audience has been hearing me say, hey, this show is a proud member of the Retirement Podcast Network. I thought it'd be great to talk a little bit about why we started, how this started, and some of the important topics that we're really honed in on these days. So maybe Taylor, you should start. I feel like this was your brainchild. Can you talk a little bit about the origin of the Retirement Podcast Network?

1:36Yeah. Initially, I launched the website, gosh, maybe three, four, maybe even five years ago. I'm not sure. But as an avid podcast listener myself, I recognized how hard it was to find and discover new high quality shows that were of interest to me. Like you have to sift through a lot of noise and a lot of garbage to like find stuff that you actually enjoy and again, find trustworthy sources. So initially I'm like, why don't I put this website out there, bring in a handful of trustworthy podcast hosts that have a similar philosophy and approach and similar expertise and bring them all into this umbrella to make it easier for those that want to listen to retirement podcasts to find new shows.

2:15And then now we've kind of relaunched the website and we've kind of made it a little bit more official. And the idea from here is in addition to helping people discover good, high quality shows from licensed professionals that have a retirement expertise, also providing listeners this safe, accurate place to get information and also different perspectives. So one of the most common questions I get as my show has grown over the years is some version of Taylor, I really enjoyed your series on long-term care. I want to dive deeper. Like what other sources do you recommend? What other podcasts do you recommend?

2:47What articles do you recommend? And not just dive deeper, but I'd love to hear a different perspective. And so we started to put together what we call these content hubs on the website, a place dedicated to one single topic where listeners might hear something on Ben's podcast or Peter's podcast about a particular topic, want to dive deeper, want to hear different perspectives, and they can go to this safe place to get good information, get different perspectives from other licensed financial planners that also host podcasts. So that's kind of the origin story. Of course, we're still in the early days and still building on top of that, but really excited what we have in store.

3:19Well, and Ben, hearing Taylor talk a little bit about something that you and I've heard him saying over and over, do you mind just sharing your point of view of what has you excited about being a part of this? You've been doing retirement podcasts for so long now and have such a great opinion on the space and what we need. Well, the reason I joined the Retirement Podcast Network is because Taylor said it should be a good idea. And I just jumped on the back wagon was the number one reason that I did it. But I'm a big believer in content creation. I think that the internet is kind of the ultimate equalizer of your geographic location is not as important as your thoughts.

3:53And we all learned about financial planning from the CFP manual. And so it wouldn't make for a very exciting podcast if we're all just regurgitating the same stuff. So what I think makes for entertaining content is to take those lessons and then say, here's how I applied it in a real person's life. And I think that's what people tune in for is there's all kinds of knowledge on the internet, but when that's applied to one-off situations, that's where you kind of get some wisdom. So to have kind of a central hub of people that have been doing this for a long time and have enriched a lot of people's lives, not to pat ourselves on the back too much, but I think it's a super valuable resource.

4:22So many thanks to Taylor and the rest of the team for putting it together. I'm with you. And Taylor invited me to join and help it launch. Obviously, he says it's a good idea. I'm going to follow him and trust his judgment. But what I love about all of the shows on the platform is that we all perform differently. And I use that word perform intentionally. One of the things that people don't realize about content creation, when you're doing it over a microphone, when you're doing it on video, like we are on YouTube right now, it's one thing to give you the information. But if you're not engaging and if you're not finding topics that really resonate with people, then it's not that different than the fourth grade book report that my oldest is working on right now.

5:03And so I have such a great appreciation for you and some of our other partners in the network for the work you do. And in general, a question maybe, Taylor, for you is you said you started it just as a website, but the Retirement Podcast Network, why do you think it's retirement planning as opposed to just investing or financial planning that's particularly important? Yeah, I always revert back to my expertise. Like I'm a neurologist and there are heart surgeons out there and there are foot surgeons and staying in our lane and staying true to our expertise. Like I can't be everything to everyone.

5:35And so my experience, my expertise is in retirement planning, and I want to share information that I know and actually apply in real life. I think our profession has long done a disservice to consumers where we do try to be everything to everybody, that we basically serve anyone with money. And so through growing my practice and growing my content platform, really narrowing in on what my expertise is, what I'm good at. And so that's what we've built the Retirement Podcast Network around, those who have expertise in actually doing retirement planning in real life rather than just broad generic information.

6:11Yeah, I think retirement planning is unique because it goes so far beyond investing. When we're accumulating wealth, I think investing just becomes, I want a positive return over time. But once we retire, I think it becomes something entirely different because the accumulation of your retirement assets represents untapped potential, essentially. Those are all memories you're going to make in the future and maybe you didn't have time to make them while you were working. So you saved up money in advance and that's going to be your future cash flows. I think that retirement is different because there's really two ways to really mess up retirement planning.

6:42And as an industry, especially with investing, we only focus on the first one. And the first one is the obvious one, which is I don't want to run out of money. That's the number one way probably to mess up retirement. But we don't give a lot of attention to the second one, which I think is equally important. And that's I don't want to die with regret. So we can't just talk about investing because there's a lot of psychology that goes into it. The person that's able to save up a few million dollars that would be considered successful for retirement planning, the same skill set that you use to save up all that money, we need an entirely different skill set to actually spend that money.

7:10We've got 30 years of scrimping and saving and investing. We can't just turn that frugality light switch off in a lot of cases. We've got to coach people into how can we spend this money confidently and use it for its intended purpose. We tell our clients all the time, if you don't fly first class, your kids will. So I think there's a lot more psychology that goes into spending the money than it does saving the money. Which introduces so many opportunities of different topics for us all to cover. And for all of you listening and watching us, do go ahead, go to retirementpodcastnetwork.com. You can sign up for a newsletter where we are all personally curating articles that we think are on useful topics for you to learn more.

7:48We have a couple of downloadable guides already, and there are three content hubs at the moment on really important retirement topics that I would love to transition into unless, Taylor, Ben, you have anything else to add that I've missed in making sure that people get to retirementpodcastnetwork.com. Yeah, nothing more to add. I think Ben made some really good points there, and I'm sure you guys have heard some version of this as well where, hey, I've done a really good job saving money, accumulating wealth. It seemed to be pretty simple for me, just like make money, save money, invest in low cost index funds.

8:20And now all of a sudden these giant pain points show up, right? What do I do about healthcare and retirement? What do I do about taxes and retirement? How do I turn this nest egg into an income stream that I won't outlive in retirement? And so some of these big pain points, these big topics start to surface at that point in life. And it just appears to be more complex for people at this stage, like they don't want to screw it up. And so that's kind of what drove our initial content areas on the website to provide these resources around some of the biggest pain points that retirees seem to be up against.

8:52Well, let's talk about some of those that we highlighted first. There are so many we could have covered. And actually, since you mentioned it last, Taylor, you're talking about income strategies, retirement income strategies. So again, if you go to retirementpodcastnetwork.com. You will find retirement resources, a dropdown. You'll see three content hubs. Let's talk a little bit about retirement income strategies. Where do you think it makes sense to start? Yeah. In my experience, what often happens when people have accumulated a nice nest egg, one of the questions is, can I retire? Do I have enough to retire?

9:27And oftentimes financial planners will answer that question with a Monte Carlo analysis, right? Run a bunch of simulations and then give them some sort of probability of success. You have a 83 % chance of reaching your retirement goals. And what I've experienced over the years is people's eyes kind of glaze over. What does 83 % really truly mean? And so what we've found is kind of turning this into a dollar figure. You've got this healthy nest egg. What does this mean in terms of monthly income for the rest of your life? We earn money on a monthly basis. We spend it on a monthly basis. We've got this pot of money, this nest that we've worked so hard to save up.

10:02Like, what does this mean to me in terms of a retirement paycheck? And so this is one of those big pain points that often comes up is, can I retire? Do I have enough? And then if so, how do I actually turn this into an income stream? How do I turn this into a retirement paycheck? And as both of you guys know, there's a gazillion different ways you can slice this up. There's no shortage of retirement withdrawal strategies or retirement income strategies. And so we wanted to provide a resource for people to learn about these different income strategies, different retirement withdrawal strategies, the pros, the cons, different perspectives from each of us that all operate a little bit differently so that retirement savers can come to their own conclusion.

10:41They can make an informed decision about how to go about creating their income strategy or their withdrawal strategy, either on their own or with a professional that they're working with. Yeah. I think people make the mistake when they're approaching retirement planning, they'll go online and they'll say, here's how much I have saved, how much can I spend every year? And you'll get some talking heads that say it's a 4 % safe withdrawal rate or 3 % or a negative 2%, whatever it is. And they'll say, okay, I've saved a million dollars. I guess I can spend 20 or$30 ,000 a year for the rest of my life.

11:09I better fit all of my dreams and hopes and passions into 20 ,000 a year and constantly be worrying about running out of money. I think people approach the financial aspect first. And I think that's a big mistake. I think people need to dream big regardless of what their financial situation looks like and try to really identify with what their future self would be passionate about and feel fulfilled by and then do the math after that. I think people do the math first and that sort of smashes their dreams in a tiny box. I think people need to approach it. What do they want to do first? And then how can I use my accumulated savings to make that happen in some version?

11:41Maybe it's not the grand version that you originally thought, but it's going to be much more fulfilling than starting with the cash flow and then saying, I guess this is where I have to live my life. Both of you making such great points. And I actually had Christine Benz on the show a few weeks ago from Morningstar, had a personal finance where we were talking about the pros and cons of the different dynamic spending methods. And Ben, to your point, the math might give you an answer, but it may not really align with what you're trying to get out of life. If you're trying to spend as much as possible, that's as different as trying to leave as much as possible to your heirs.

12:13I think, Taylor, you and I have talked about, and I've heard on your show talking about guardrails before or people foregoing inflation adjustments or just a fixed real rate. The resource that we have on the website, again, kind of introducing a lot of the ideas, giving you a little sense of where to start. And then we also have episodes that we all have done that are listed on the website as well for these topics. So I think you're going to find a lot of value if you're approaching retirement, if you are in retirement. Or even I think what sometimes gets overlooked is the super diligent savers in their 30s and 40s who are just chomping at the bit to retire so that they can go through these withdrawal strategies too.

12:52So that's one of the content hubs we have up there. Another big one that is all over the internet is Roth conversions. Ben, why don't we start with you this time? Just give me some thoughts when you hear people wanting to learn about Roth conversions. It's one of the content hubs, what are some things that you like to have people keep in mind? So everybody loves Roth IRAs as well. They should, right? That's money that you pay taxes on now. And then it grows tax-free forever. Who wouldn't love a Roth IRA? But I think a mistake people make is that they get too excited about a Roth and they do conversions before retirement, or they're maxing out their 401k on the Roth side right before retirement during their peak earning years.

13:31And we usually, when we dive into somebody's taxes, we can show them you're in the 22 % or 24 % bracket now during your peak earning years. And once you retire, you might be at a 10 % or 15 % effective tax rate. We should be in full deduction mode. As attractive as Roth IRAs are, we should be in deduction mode now and then undo those deductions once we're in retirement. And we would probably keep a 10 % or 15 % spread on every dollar that we do that with. So Roth IRAs are amazing and they're fantastic and we should be excited about them, but there's a certain order of operations we should be thinking about.

14:00So when we think about Roths, we love that. Roth conversions are a big part of our year-end tax planning that we do for clients. So we'll look at sort of the friendlier areas of the IRMA brackets or the marginal brackets, and we'll say, okay, Mr. and Mrs. Client, you should do a$60 ,000 Roth conversion this year. But one of our favorite things to do is to say, you know, you're financially independent. You don't need to save any more money for retirement. What if we just spent the$60 ,000 on something? It's going to get us the exact same place tax-wise. You mentioned several years ago, you want to take all the kids to Disney, or you want to give a bunch of money to your local college, is this the year that we investigate doing something like that?

14:34So it's a great opportunity to take the dollars and cents and turn it into something. Roth conversions are cool, but converting those dollars into memories is even cooler. So we use the Roth conversion as a bit of a trick to get some behavioral stuff in there too. Yeah, really well said, Ben. Going back to these pain points that retirees are up against. Actually, one point of clarification I want to make, you know, we're talking about retirement here. And Peter, you mentioned people in their 30s and 40s. retirement has kind of a different definition these days, right? It's not like work for 30 or 40 years and hanging up and sail off into the sunset.

15:03We often like to refer to it as making work optional, right? I just want to know that I have the ability to retire, that work is now optional and I can go and pursue the things that I really enjoy. And it might be just continuing to work in my current profession. So those in their thirties and forties, like retirement planning certainly applies to them as well. They have some sort of goal. And oftentimes that goal is just making work optional. I know that I have that option. In thinking about some of these big pain points that people are up against as they approach that age of 60, 65, that traditional retirement age, taxes is one of those big pain points.

15:33I have a large tax bill in retirement. I'm realizing now that my tax bill might be the same or even higher in retirement than when I was a working professional. So how do I ensure that I don't overpay the IRS? And Roth conversions is one of those tax planning strategies that comes up when we talk about tax planning and mitigating our taxes in retirement. The one thing I like to highlight is that Roth conversions, as great as they can be, are not going to fix a broken retirement plan, right? Roth conversions are a way to optimize an already healthy plan. So sometimes I think people get fooled into thinking, oh gosh, here's this like magic solution to help get me to the finish line.

16:10I like to think about Roth conversions of like, no, I already have a really healthy plan. I've oversaved for retirement. I have enough. How can I optimize this and ensure again, like I pay my fair share of taxes, but I don't leave the IRS a tip along the way. So I love that we've put this hub together to, again, provide different perspectives to explain what Roth conversions are, how to approach them in retirement, who they're a good fit for, who they're not, and just answering some of these common questions, given that it is such a hot topic in the retirement planning arena. Yeah. And I think because it's a hot topic, people make mistakes.

16:41From what I see working with clients, from what I hear from listeners who are do-it-yourself investors and know that they should be doing something around Roth conversion is just being unintentional. Maybe the problem is that they're a little impatient or just unaware of how to do the math and figure out how much should you do. I'll see people who are converting way too much on the front end or paying conversion taxes with the IRA funds or even just converting an IRA that was recently rolled over from a 401k, something like that. So look, the Roth that you've both kind of made Clear is a great account.

17:15It's not the end all be all. And that when you are doing these things, there is a right way and a wrong way to doing it. And so hopefully this guide on retirement podcast network.com can outline some of these things. Again, we will also have our resources as well as some of our other members resources, not just the content hub, but stuff that we've put out there in the past that you may find useful. The third content hub that we've launched with is long term care. Taylor, why did you choose that one? Yeah, again, just thinking about the big pain points for retirees at the stage of life. It's like healthcare and retirement.

17:48What am I going to do? And what happens if something unexpected occurs? We all plan on living a healthy life. And a lot of our clients and people we know at this stage, they want to take care of themselves, but sometimes things happen. And one of those things is a long-term care event. And if we're not properly prepared for a long-term care event, it can absolutely destroy a healthy retirement plan. So it's one thing that typically comes up in these retirement planning conversations. It's a really, really common question I get. One of them is, how do I prepare for a long-term care event? But two, should I buy insurance, right?

18:20Long-term care insurance is a thing. And oftentimes it's wrongly sold to people and it's really confusing to understand. So we thought that having this resource available to, again, provide accurate information on long-term care, on long-term care insurance, the pros and cons of the different types of policies, the different episodes that we've all published on this topic so that people can kind of sift through the noise and again, come to that informed decision about how to approach this in their own retirement planning. Yeah. Long-term care is such a tricky situation. There's really no perfect solution.

18:52I mean, you could buy a bunch of long-term care insurance and then never need it. So you've plugged tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars into this policy you never used. You could not have long-term care insurance and then need it. And then you had a multi-hundred thousand dollar liability that you've got to fund. And then let's say you did buy long-term care and you did need it. Well, you had this catastrophic thing that probably wasn't so great for you at the end of your retirement. So there's really no win solution. So it's this looming threat to your retirement plan that we've all got to think about and there's no perfect way to kind of hedge it.

19:21So there's a lot of different ways to do without insurance. There's self-pay options. There's looking at using your own home equity as kind of a quasi policy. That's what we kind of like to look at with clients, but it's just a really tricky thing. And a lot of clients have a lot of questions about it. So it's a good thing to dedicate some thoughts to. Okay, guys. So I want to throw you a little bit of a curveball. We've gone through the three content hubs that we currently have launched. We all know that we're going to do more, but we've actually never discussed what they will be. So I'm going to put you both on the spot and I'll take a turn to, we'll start with you, Taylor.

19:52If you were just creating the next content hub on a really important retirement topic, what would it be? My answer is going to be a little generic, but I'll explain it in more detail. And again, this comes from thinking about listeners and clients and the questions that we get from them and some of the biggest mistakes that I often see in retirement. And that is investing and having the proper allocation to match your retirement goals. And what often happens is I see retirees starting with their investments first and asking questions about their investments instead of leading with what their needs are, what their goals are, what their dreams are, and letting that influence how they invest.

20:31If we keep things really simple and just say traditional retiree has a nest egg and they want to create a retirement paycheck that they can't outlive, well, in order to do that properly, you have to have a proper asset allocation. You can't have all of your money in one asset class. You can't have all of your money under the mattress. You can't have highly concentrated individual stock positions. You have to have a proper allocation to support the retirement paycheck that you're going after. And so I often see just a lot of mistakes around investing in retirement for income. People hyper-focused on just dividend-paying stocks, thinking that that will support their spending needs.

21:07And we all know that there's plenty of misconceptions and misunderstandings around that. So I think it's a really important topic to translate how to invest at this stage of life, right? That decumulation stage, it's very different than accumulating wealth. So I'm excited to attack the investment portion of the content hubs on the website to provide more resources to those in the decumulation stage of life, how to pair their investments, create the right allocation for retirement spending. Yeah, I like that idea. And I always feel like so much of investment success is really just minimizing mistakes.

21:39And I imagine that we can create a lot of content that highlights those mistakes. There's never really like a one size fits all investment strategy for everybody. And obviously, this is called the long term investor, but we're exploring all the things beyond the portfolio because the portfolio is just one piece. And I just feel like if you minimize the mistakes and focus on a lot of the planning topics that we're talking about and you can control, then you've got basically all of it set. Ben, when you think about investing in retirement, for retirement, what comes to mind for you? I like to think about I'm investing for retirement, not me personally, but my clients are investing for retirement to what end?

22:17So I'd like to explore as a content hub lifestyle. You've saved up all this money, what are we going to do with it? So travel is always a big bucket list item for clients. So what kind of resources could we put together for travel agencies that cater to active retirees, things like that? What sort of tours, what are the happening? I don't want to say retirement communities, because that sounds like for people that are a hundred, but - Margaritaville. Yeah, exactly. Things like that. Who's going to be the next, other than Peter, who's the next Jimmy Buffett to lead this revolution of active retirees?