Financial Fears That Go Bump in the Night

Our 2 Cents – Episode #270

Financial Fears That Go Bump in the Night

Boo! Our 2 Cents is getting into the spooky spirit with a few financial tricks, treats, and surprises! On today’s show, Steve and Gabriel cover the latest headlines before shining a light on some of the biggest fears investors face. Tune in now and let the Lewits help you send those financial monsters packing!

1. Gabriel’s Quick Hits:
   • It’s the age-old question: Coke or Pepsi? Which soda giant is bubbling to the top, and which one is losing its fizz?
   • Your gas tank, grocery cart, and wallet may all be feeling the squeeze. Here’s how prices have changed since the Iran war began.
   • Could the retirement finish line be moving closer? A new Social Security bill is on the table and could change when Americans can start collecting benefits.
2. Financial Frights:
   • Unexpected taxes, unpredictable markets, and retirement worries… oh my! What financial concerns are giving you nightmares?

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Podcast Transcript

Announcer: You’re listening to Our 2 Cents with the team from SGL Financial, building wealth for life. Steve Lewit is the President of SGL Financial, and Gabriel Lewit is the CEO. They’re here to discuss all the latest in financial news, trends, strategies, and more.

Gabriel Lewit: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Our 2 Cents. We are excited to be here with you today. You’ve got Steven the Magnificent Lewit-

Steve Lewit: Richard.

Gabriel Lewit: … here on the microphone.

Steve Lewit: I thought you were going to use my middle name.

Gabriel Lewit: The Magnificent.

Steve Lewit: Richard. No, no. Richard, the Lion-hearted.

Gabriel Lewit: You’ve got Gabriel David Lewit here.

Steve Lewit: The equally magnificent.

Gabriel Lewit: Sure. And you’ve got producer John and Gabby in the background helping make the show run.

Steve Lewit: Also, magnificent. And we have you listeners who are the most magnificent.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, we’ve got a lot of magnificence going around this morning.

Steve Lewit: It’s that kind of a fall morning where you got that cool breeze and a beautiful day and a sunny sky.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, it’s just beautiful out there. We hope you’re having a wonderful week, whatever day it is when you’re listening to our show. And we’ve got a great show lined up for you here today.

Steve Lewit: But of course.

Gabriel Lewit: The Bears, of course, won last weekend. It makes for a good week.

Steve Lewit: And the Giants lost that nobody cares out there except me.

Gabriel Lewit: But what else can you ask for, right? Good health, good weather, good football, and a good podcast here to give you some financial knowledge and news to use.

Steve Lewit: You bet them. What do we got today, Gabriel?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, in quick hits here, we’ve got a fun one. Did you know that most Americans prefer Coke over Pepsi and so does KFC?

Steve Lewit: So, this is a big deal for me. I just want you to know. I grew up drinking Pepsi-Cola. And over the years, as I go into different stores, there’s less and less choice, but you got to go for Diet Coke or Coca-Cola.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, that is a challenge. Most big stores and restaurants out there, they have to choose between Pepsi or Coke. I’m still unsure why they can’t have both, but apparently they have to choose between Pepsi and Coke. And most have chosen Coca-Cola products over Pepsi products.

Steve Lewit: I think because they don’t pay for the machines and they don’t want… In other words, if you use Coke, Coke pays for the machines.

Gabriel Lewit: Oh, is that how they get you?

Steve Lewit: You can’t use Coke and Pepsi because then who pays for the machine?

Gabriel Lewit: See, I’m going to start a store where I own the machine so I could have both Coke and Pepsi products.

Steve Lewit: And you will get nobody plus business at all. But go ahead.

Gabriel Lewit: I’ll get twice as many customers because I won’t alienate one or the other, right? Yeah, so apparently KFC had to make a decision of which brands of drink that they wanted to move ahead with. I guess KFC, of course, is working to improve their sales and redo their stores and yada yada, but they chose Coke products, and apparently most of America would agree with them. This is probably why they chose Coca-Cola products, because Pepsi is now at an abysmal 8.1% of the soft drink market. Okay?

Steve Lewit: Which is a huge market. I mean, there are so many different things in that market. That’s still a pretty big percentage.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, Coca-Cola is 18.5%.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. They’re getting their pants off their-

Gabriel Lewit: KDP, Keurig, Dr. Pepper, 8.8%.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Now, I have a question for you, Gabriel.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes.

Steve Lewit: What was the first carbonated drink, popular drink, like Coke, Pepsi? What was the first one that came out?

Gabriel Lewit: Are we doing SGL trivia?

Steve Lewit: This is trivia that I learned by reading this article.

Gabriel Lewit: The first soft drink that ever came out?

Steve Lewit: That’s right.

Gabriel Lewit: Would be Coca-Cola.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, that’s a good guess, except it was Dr. Pepper.

Gabriel Lewit: Really?

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Now, Director Gabby here, Producer Gabby said sarsaparilla, and I think she’s right, or root beer, because I’m sure out west the people on the Conestoga wagons were brewing root beer in the little town with nothing else to do.

Gabriel Lewit: Apparently if you have nowhere to go to buy Coke or Pepsi, you’re home brewing your own sarsaparilla soda.

Steve Lewit: I wonder what sarsaparilla tastes like.

Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know. Well, anyways folks, that’s all we wanted to say about that.

Steve Lewit: This is very important.

Gabriel Lewit: Now you know. And when you’re at your next restaurant or local eating ground and they don’t have your drink of choice, you can go find the owner and berate him for choosing the wrong one.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Now, KFC in Europe stayed with Pepsi. I think Pepsi is stronger in Europe.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, I’m not sure. I have not been to Europe in a while.

Steve Lewit: Folks have no taste.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Well, in a little bit more depressing news, we have some data for you about how prices have changed since the Iran war started.

Steve Lewit: Oh, my.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. And of course, we talked about inflation a little bit ago on previous shows, how it’s up to a 3.7% year-over-year high this past September, and rising oil and gas prices due to the Iran conflict are a big part of this.

And this is going to come to no surprise to anybody, but fuel and transportation costs are surging. Gasoline prices increased more than 46%, and diesel prices rose 66% since this war has begun.

And higher fuel costs affect shipping, supply chains, and the prices of everyday goods that rely on being shipped places, which is most goods.

Steve Lewit: Diesel fuel costs are huge. That’s farmers, that’s boats, that’s more than we realize because we’re focused on just regular gas. And I was very upset because I’ve been filling my tank and I was at $96 and now it’s up to $104.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, a client just completely out of the blue the other day says, “What’s gas by you guys, Gabe? Because I just passed $5 a gallon here by me.” And I was like, it’s funny because Producer John just mentioned the same thing about gas prices for regular unleaded topping $5 a gallon around here, which is very, very high for us historically.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. And I think California, were they over seven or $8 something?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah.

Steve Lewit: It’s just crazy.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So of course everybody knows this. Everybody’s frustrated by it. It’s going to impact the cost of holiday gifts, it seems at this point, and prices.

The other thing for us Illinoisians and any other cold weather climate folks: home heating costs. As you start to use the heater versus your air conditioner, you’re going to expect to see heating oil prices increase 128% from past January to September, while residential natural gas prices rose 77% since this past February.

Steve Lewit: We should switch back to coal heaters. Everybody go out and buy a stove.

Gabriel Lewit: Be prepared, folks, for when you put on your heat to see substantially higher heating prices this winter.

Steve Lewit: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Gabriel Lewit: And food and travel as we talked about, but airfare costs of course run on fuel, and those are nearly up 17, 18% from January to September as jet fuel prices have nearly doubled. That’s a big portion of your airfare bill, are fuel prices. So of course airfare has then increased.

And I know this because I pay for a ticket for my mom to fly in every Thanksgiving, and this year’s Thanksgiving ticket is substantially more expensive than last year’s Thanksgiving ticket.

Steve Lewit: And I know this, too, because I’m taking a short trip to California and I was shopping prices and I kept saying to myself, “Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?”

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.

Steve Lewit: It is. And especially for retirees, this is a big problem because retirees can’t… There’s no other way of making… It’s not like you can work extra hours or have a limited income and higher prices. What do you do?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, here’s the challenge. We talked last time about how the Social Security COLA was up 3.-

Steve Lewit: 6, I think.

Gabriel Lewit: … 6%. Okay, so I’m trying to get my calculator on my phone here, but I can’t talk and do my password at the same time. I figured it out. Okay. But let’s say you’re getting $3,000 a month times 0.036, you’ll get an additional $108 per month. That will, I mean, be obliterated by an oil and gas bill that’s nearly double in this winter.

So that’s the problem with inflation is it’s nice to get an increase to your Social Security and your COLA, but it’s going to all feel like it’s getting eaten away by these rising costs.

Steve Lewit: So Gabriel, this is not a topic that’s on the agenda, but I’m curious for your answer. So if you’re a retiree and you’ve got all these costs going up, and fuel is more, you can’t take vacations as much as you would like, your kids don’t come to visit, you’re on a fixed budget, you got Social Security pension, maybe you have an annuity, but it’s fixed, you’re not super wealthy, so you can’t just take money out of your investments, what do you do?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, there’s not a ton you can do. It’s something where you can tighten the belt. Nobody wants to have that be the answer. You can cross your fingers, hope for inflation to come down, costs to cool, very slow, get a part-time job. I mean, you figure out how to stretch your budget.

Sometimes people have some money they could spend, but they feel like they shouldn’t. I just had a review with a client yesterday, not super wealthy, seven, $800,000 in retirement savings. Started talking about how budget is feeling tight and, “Gosh, I wish I had a little bit more to spend.” And I said, “Well, you have money here. We could take some withdrawals out of your portfolio.” “Oh, I can’t do that.” Still, and we ended up having a 20-minute conversation about how she could.

Steve Lewit: Right. She was afraid to-

Gabriel Lewit: But the initial thought in her head was she can’t touch that money.

Steve Lewit: She’s afraid. She’s scared.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah. And I said, “Look, if you need another $100 a month, that’s $1,200 a year, that’s a drop in the bucket of your $700,000 portfolio. You can afford to do that, Alice,” client’s name.

So it’s something to think about. And sometimes people think they can’t spend more or they are truly stuck, and maybe they are, but also perhaps they’re not as stuck as they think they are, and there’s more that they can do to optimize their income plan for retirement withdrawals.

Steve Lewit: Excellent point. I was thinking this is really the time to do a budget.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, that, too.

Steve Lewit: And most people do not have a budget.

Gabriel Lewit: If you know how to use an AI muse agent, you can have it hunt for unused subscriptions for you. It’s one of the uses they say it can do, although I would not want to give Meta all my passwords and account information for such purpose, but that’s something that they could also do.

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Well, anyways, let’s move on, shall we?

Steve Lewit: Yeah. I had that thought pass through my mind and out my lips, and I wanted to hear your wisdom.

Gabriel Lewit: There we go.

Steve Lewit: That’s how it works.

Gabriel Lewit: Thought in, words out.

Steve Lewit: Thought in, words out.

Gabriel Lewit: Exactly.

Steve Lewit: Sometimes thought in and the words shouldn’t come out.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.

Steve Lewit: But they do anyway.

Gabriel Lewit: This is a topic we haven’t talked about much, and I don’t want to go too far down this topic because it’s still a proposed idea, but there is a new bill that would potentially lower Social Security retirement age and try to also have some Social Security reform.

So many of you that have followed the show for a long time, or have otherwise heard, that the social Security System is in for some trouble in the year 2032. If there are no changes that are made at the current moment, there will only be enough money funding in the Social Security system to pay out about 80% of current benefits, meaning there would be a 20% benefit cut-

Steve Lewit: For everybody.

Gabriel Lewit: … for everybody on the program unless changes are made.

Steve Lewit: Which, by the way, would be a disaster-

Gabriel Lewit: Yes.

Steve Lewit: … for people-

Gabriel Lewit: On fixed incomes, just like we were talking about.

Steve Lewit: Well, 60% of the folks in our country live entirely on Social Security. You can’t cut it 20%.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. And so nobody is sure yet what the solution to this looks like, but what’s promising, I would say, is that politicians are starting to think about this, given that it’s only five years away, really. So they’re starting to propose suggestions, bills, solutions, things of that nature.

And so there are some proposals here, and one was from the Blue Collar Social Security Fairness Act. And this wouldn’t specifically impact per se how you get your benefits, but it is actually trying to lower the full retirement age to age 60 from age 62 for workers and physically demanding jobs. And then there would have to be a points-based system depending on your profession. Apparently, this would somehow help the system. The article doesn’t go into the exact, maybe some people with certain points don’t get as much. I don’t know.

But it’s interesting to start to… All I wanted to say is there’s starting to be more and more proposals out there that could potentially help solve this issue. And that’s why I started this by saying I didn’t want to get in depth on this, just to-

Steve Lewit: Yeah, because it’s a can of worms. I mean, if you go down that rabbit hole-

Gabriel Lewit: And nobody knows if this is going to get passed or not passed, right? So these are just ideas being kicked around. But for those of you tracking this issue, some of you come to us and say, “Gabe, what do we do? How do we model our retirement plan?” Well, we can model it with an 80% benefit or a 20% reduction, or you can cross your fingers and hope that somebody will solve this issue before the year 2032.

But it does seem like people in Congress and Washington are starting to pay closer attention here. This will be, I think, on the next presidential election, not so much these midterms, I think will be a huge issue. I really do think so.

Steve Lewit: Definitely, but I still believe that they will find a solution. I don’t believe that they’re going… I think America won’t let them, the population, just cut your benefits 20%.

Gabriel Lewit: I agree with you. I really strongly agree with that. I don’t think that’s something to overtly worry about, although it’s there in the back burner.

Steve Lewit: Sure. Absolutely.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes. At the moment. Okay. Yeah, so those are our quick hits for today, just to bring you up to speed on the news to use in the world.

And let’s talk a little about our main focus here for today, which is, in the spirit of Halloween, some common frights that people face with their retirement.

Steve Lewit: How did I know you were going to choose this?

Gabriel Lewit: Things that go bump in the night.

Steve Lewit: My intuition said, “Gabriel’s going to have a Halloween theme.”

Gabriel Lewit: Well, Producer John and Gabby tee up so many topics for us. It actually becomes difficult in some weeks to choose from all their amazing choices. So Producer Gabby in particular, really dialing in those top choices here.

All right. So this one, of course, spoke to me in whispers.

Steve Lewit: In whispers.

Gabriel Lewit: At night.

Steve Lewit: Was it a nightmare or just a dream?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So the topic here-

Steve Lewit: “I think I’ll talk about…”

Gabriel Lewit: … is what scares investors more than Halloween, right?

Steve Lewit: “… scary things in finances.”

Gabriel Lewit: Things that go bump in the night in your retirement plan.

Steve Lewit: “What’s under my bed, in my bed here?”

Gabriel Lewit: Well, it’s not funny, but my son of late has been having some nightmares, and he comes into our bed at 3:00 in the morning and I got to put him back in his bed. And I’m like, “You okay, buddy?” He’s like, “Yeah.” And then he’s half back asleep.

But things that keep you up at night, what are those when it comes to your finances and retirement? And I don’t know if it’s because I watched the movie Casper with my son the other day. It is the friendly ghost, but you’re still starting to introduce these concepts of ghosts and people getting killed, even though it’s a really kid-friendly way, but…

Steve Lewit: Yeah, yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: I wonder if that’s what’s haunting him at night. Who knows?

Steve Lewit: He’s growing up.

Gabriel Lewit: But what haunts our clients at night, Mr. Steve, for retirement planning, for financial planning? What are those frights that can give people scares?

We just talked about one of them, I think, when I was giving the example of my client earlier, where she is scared to spend her money, even though she has money to spend. And I think this is one of the most common fears or frights that we see month in, month out with all clients of all sizes of wealth.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s quite interesting, no matter a person’s financial condition and no matter a plan that we do that says there’s no way on earth you’re going to run out of money, people still worry about running out of money.

And the fear is is that something disastrous happens, it’s the sky is going to fall. And I understand it because there’s so much chaos and, how should I say it, turmoil in the world today. Not only in America, but look what’s going on in France. And you see all this turmoil and you say, “Something really bad could happen, and I have no money.” And that fear just sits in there because it’s reinforced in the news. It’s reinforced in what you read. People come in and say, “Oh my God, the sky is falling.” And I think it’s hard.

Gabriel Lewit: It is. So how does somebody who has those feelings, let’s say you’re a listener on this show right now that’s nodding along, what do you do to help mitigate that fear?

Steve Lewit: I have the names of a few therapists to help. We should have somebody on board here, Gabriel, a financial therapist, counselor on board, on our team that someone can talk to and say, “Why am I scared?”

Look, we could have an earthquake here in Illinois, right around here. It’s possible, but we don’t worry about it because it’s not going to happen. So it’s the same thing. Look, why do you have this fear about running out of money when it’s not going to happen?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, maybe I’ll take this in two steps. One step would be the rational side, where if you take a look at your financial plan and the numbers show that you could easily afford to take some money out and still be fine, for some of our clients, that’s all that they need to see.

For others, however, it’s still not enough, and they still trend toward these irrational thoughts. And to some level, yes, maybe talking to somebody on a more consistent basis, therapy, there’s nothing wrong with therapy if you happen to need it, can help you work through these challenges, these ideas that we keep in our heads from long times ago.

Maybe you had no money when you were younger and Mom and Dad didn’t have any money, and you got that stuck in your head and it’s hard to change. Sometimes that might be helpful, but I think there’s a few different paths to try to address that one.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. And folks, we can get very specific. We can model a market crash. We can model a long-term care stay that might cost 100 grand a year, 150 grand a year.

Gabriel Lewit: You’re stealing each of the other frights here.

Steve Lewit: Oh, am I?

Gabriel Lewit: Okay? You can’t do that. It’s a no-no, Steve.

Steve Lewit: Sorry.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay? Because fright number two was a market crash and fright number three was long-term care.

Steve Lewit: I’m so sorry.

Gabriel Lewit: You’re spoiling all the thunders here.

Steve Lewit: I felt like a genius. My mind is just expanding with… I can feel and read everybody’s mind.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. So if I can piggyback off of what you were saying there, yes, you can plan for these things, but yes, the second most common fright that people face that keeps them up at night is the fear of a market crash essentially right before retirement in particular.

Steve Lewit: You know, we could model that.

Gabriel Lewit: We could.

Steve Lewit: We could.

Gabriel Lewit: I didn’t know that.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, you didn’t know, huh?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. A market crash right before retiring, people remember 2008, people remember the dot-com crash of 2001, and people are concerned: what if that happens again?

Steve Lewit: Yeah. So get face to face with it, folks. Don’t say, “What happens?” Model it out, put it on pencil and paper, in your computer, or come to us. Gabriel will give you the commercial phone number in a second.

But model it out and say, “Okay, if the market dropped 40%, what happens?” If you have a well-designed plan, it might not have that much of an impact short term on you.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I just had a client review yesterday, and we were talking and we were going over their portfolio. And as we do, typically we’ll do a quick review of the overall plan, and then I’ll circle back and I’ll say, “So let’s look at each of your investment accounts and talk about making sure this is still a good fit for what you’re comfortable with.”

“And so this account here, John,” I’m just going to say John, “was 100% stock, and it fits into your plan because it’s part of your long-term growth bucket, but how are you feeling about it?” He said, “Gabe, I’m a little concerned about the market being high right now. What can we do about that?”

And so we talked about options of creating different buckets and diversifying further, de-risking a little bit more. And we settled on this idea of getting a little bit more conservative on that account because it would give him and his wife a much greater peace of mind. They might earn a little less if markets keep rising, but they felt much more confident in the scenario where the markets would go down, and that was a good choice for them in their planning.

So once you can model these, you could talk about the game plans and the options for what to do to get yourself to the point where you’re not worried about this at night.

Steve Lewit: Exactly. And it’s a matter of, instead of just thinking about it, is to get it objective, to get it out of the emotional into, like you were talking about earlier, the logical, the more objective.

If you say to yourself, “Well, if the market crashes, it’s a really bad thing,” well, you won’t like it, but if you get it on pencil and paper and you see exactly what that does, you may say, “Oh, I can live with that.”

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah.

Steve Lewit: I had a client yesterday, too, similar conversation, except their long-term money, which is going to sit there basically for 25 years or 30 years. They’ll never touch it unless they had a huge emergency.

And I said, “Well, what if the market drops 40%?” And the guy said, “Well, long-term, the market goes up, so I don’t care.”

Gabriel Lewit: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Everyone has their own risk tolerance.

Steve Lewit: Yep.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Another fright here would be, and this one is unfortunate to think about, but is the concern of losing a spouse.

Steve Lewit: I was going to bring that up, but I didn’t want to steal your thunder on that.

Gabriel Lewit: I do, from time to time, not super regularly, it’s something that maybe people don’t want to think about. I actually bring it up from time to time, too.

But is, “Hey, what happens to your plan if something happens to one of each of you, or if one of you pass away and the other survives the other spouse?”

Steve Lewit: And this is particularly important, Gabriel, if there’s a large age differential between a husband and a wife.

Gabriel Lewit: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Or if one spouse has a single-life pension, or a much higher Social Security benefit, or all these other things that can impact the surviving spouse’s financial stability.

And so if this is something, I hope it concerns most of you out there, but for some, it’s something that keeps them up at night, right? They want to make sure that their spouse is taken care of. They want to make sure that there’s no financial concerns.

They want to make sure that everything is smooth sailing for that surviving spouse and they’re not dealing with lots of legal problems or issues, or anything to do with just challenges when they’re already dealing with emotional challenges.

Steve Lewit: Definitely.

Gabriel Lewit: So, getting all those affairs in order, making sure you’ve projected it out from a numbers perspective can give you peace of mind that there won’t be any concerns there if one spouse passes away before the other. So we call that a survivorship scenario.

Steve Lewit: Definitely.

Gabriel Lewit: And it can be something we run for you or model out if it’s ever something that would be valuable and helpful for you.

Steve Lewit: And you mentioned another point. It’s not financial directly, but it’s legal, especially with blended families. This is why you have to have… I know that’s not off-topic today either, but your estate planning becomes very important when a spouse passes.

Gabriel Lewit: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, so again, that’s one where we can help you model that out. If that’s something that’s concerning for you, let’s talk about it.

Okay. Two last frights here: rising healthcare costs and, for some, long-term care. I continue to say long-term care is not as much of a concern for most of the clients we talk to, for whatever reason. It is for some, but those same clients are often very concerned about their healthcare costs. So Medicare, Affordable Care Act, prescription drugs, all these things just get more and more expensive.

You’re going to sense a theme here for all of these, which is build it into your plan, model it out, let’s make sure it’s accounted for. That can help alleviate those concerns about “what if.” You can tend to inventory those medical and healthcare expenses and plan ahead for them.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, definitely. A lot of folks have the experience of Mom and Dad going into a nursing home and continued care and seeing the financial burden that that’s placed on them. And we can model those out, or you can say, “Okay, if one of us goes into a nursing home for three years and that costs 300 or $400,000,” you can put that in a model and say, “This is where we would get that money from.”

As you said, most people do not buy long-term care insurance. Even though there’s some pretty interesting plans out there right now, it’s maybe three out of 10 or two out of 10. Everything that is on your mind, folks, financially, we’re able to model that out, put it into reality so you can see it in dollars and cents and time horizons exactly what your condition or position will be.

And that will give you some greater sense of peace of mind, not to give you total peace of mind, but it will help you have more confidence about the future.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. What I often end most of my review meetings and strategy meetings with my clients is, “So what does all this mean?” Okay, we’re going through numbers, accounts, and income and taxes and beneficiaries, so what does all this mean?

Folks, from my perspective, your plan looks good, looks great, looks awesome, whatever that level is. Or some rare cases have to say, “We got to worry about this, this, or this.” But most of the time, it’s: your plan looks great, and if it doesn’t look good, we want to make it look good.

Doesn’t mean you won’t worry about it, but my hope is that by seeing that and hearing me say that, that will result in that client not worrying nearly as much about where they are. That’s my hope.

Steve Lewit: It’s not like worry goes away, but it can be reduced and minimized and made more manageable.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, yeah. Now, the last one we can’t model for you, but it’s a newer fright or fear in this day and age of AI, which is somebody spoofing you or scamming you using the powers of AI in today’s world.

So it’s something where we occasionally talk about how to protect yourself from scams and things of that nature. And so that’s not the sole focus of this, but it is something to be aware of.

People can get your voice now and call and sound like you. People can get voices of your kids and call their parents and ask for money as if they were your kid, but it’s not. People can get videos of you now. I mean, it’s kind of crazy what can happen in this world of AI.

So it just causes you to be a little more concerned, but also you have to learn new skills, what to pay attention to, what to look out for, be vigilant for AI-powered scams and to make sure that these things don’t come back and haunt you.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, you got to work on your scam meter and make sure it’s working. It’s very easy to fall into the trap that these folks lay for you, especially with AI. How do I say this? Am I allowed to say this, that we all have BS meters? And now we need scam meters.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, it’s like in the movies with the robots where the robots are so good, you don’t know if they’re humans that they have to cut their skin to see if there’s metal beneath it or if it’s really the human.

Steve Lewit: Who is really talking to me?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. It’s like, “I think you’re the…” Yeah. So you just don’t know. You just don’t know in this world. It’s kind of crazy that we’re at that point, but something where if it’s an AI bot and you’re ever concerned it’s your kid, you got to ask them.

You can talk to your kids ahead of time about setting up special phrases or things that only your kid would know that the internet wouldn’t know, so, thus, AI wouldn’t know, and have safe words. It’s kind of what a new world.

We should focus on that at some point: how to scam-proof, protect yourself in this world of AI.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, it would be a good topic. But there’s a lot of fear, not only financially, but about AI today, if you read it in the news and a lot of ideas circulating, but it is something on the radar that’s coming and folks will help you prepare for it any way we can.

Gabriel Lewit: So, Steve?

Steve Lewit: Yes.

Gabriel Lewit: What frightens you in this world of finance most for our clients? What are you most concerned about on behalf of our listeners?

Steve Lewit: For me, it’s being unprepared for what might happen, which is the essence of why we’re financial planners. I meet hundreds of people just like you do, Gabriel. And I will tell you, we give seminars, we talk, we’re out there talking, I’m on WGN, and it always boils down to one thing: are you prepared for life as a retired person?

And most people are really not prepared. They kind of wing it, or they’re guessing at it, or they think they know. It’s like, I hate to put it this way, like going to war, but not going through training camp or not being prepared.

When you retire, life changes. The world changes, the rules change, everything changes. And I worry that people are just not prepared to handle it.

Gabriel Lewit: Good answer. And now what frightens you most about Halloween?

Steve Lewit: What frightens me most is that my grandson has nightmares. I don’t want him to go out for Halloween now.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. He’s 10 and a half. I wonder if he’s at the age now where he’s starting to think about bigger things floating around in his head. Yeah, no, I mean there’s all these creepy kids in masks and stuff crawling around out there. Some are-

Steve Lewit: Did you have nightmares when you… I don’t remember you having nightmares.

Gabriel Lewit: I don’t remember. Who knows? Probably.

Steve Lewit: You blocked it off.

Gabriel Lewit: Most kids do, I think at some point, but… Yeah. Yeah, hopefully everyone has a wonderful Halloween.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, enjoy it.

Gabriel Lewit: We hope we were able to share with you some of the top financial frights that are out there and give you some ideas of how to create peace of mind from those. As always, we love talking with you.

If we can help you in any way, shape, or form, big or small, give us a call, set up a time for a complimentary appointment. We can chat all about your goals, your concerns, your worries, and strategies to help you feel better about them.

You can reach us here at 847-499-3330 or go to sglfinancial.com and click “Contact Us.” Or you can email us, info@sglfinancial.com and say, “I’d like an appointment,” and we will respond and get one right on your calendar.

Steve Lewit: Absolutely.

Gabriel Lewit: We are wishing you a wonderful rest of your week and weekend, and we will talk to you on the next show.

Steve Lewit: Stay well, everybody.

Gabriel Lewit: Bye-bye.

Steve Lewit: See you now.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our 2 Cents with Steve and Gabriel Lewit. For any questions about your finances, give SGL a call at 847-499-3330 or visit us on the web at sglfinancial.com, and be sure to subscribe to join us on next week’s episode.

Disclosure: Investment Advisory services are offered through SGL Financial, LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Adviser. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or expertise. Insurance and other financial products are offered separately through individually licensed and appointed agents.