How to Think About Your Money in 2026

Our 2 Cents – Episode #239

How to Think About Your Money in 2026

Welcome to 2026! Steve and Gabriel are kicking off the first episode of the new year by sharing key updates and a warm outlook on what’s ahead. Tune in and start the year informed! Listen now using the link below.

1. Quotes of the Month:
   • “Money is the best deodorant.” — Elizabeth Taylor
   • “People who advocate simplicity have money in the bank; the money came first, not the simplicity.” — Douglas Coupland
2. 2026 Money Updates:
   • Discover what’s changing for retirees and pre-retirees this year.
3. 2025 Market Recap:
   • Here are 5 ways the markets surprised us in 2025.

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Podcast Transcript

Announcer: You’re listening to Our Two 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: Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to a new year, a new show, and the start of a new, better something.

Steve Lewit: Fantastic, yeah, a better, fantastic 2026.

Gabriel Lewit: We are at a time where hope springs eternal. The flowers are not blooming yet.

Steve Lewit: It’s 50 degrees today. It is warm, yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: It is a new year, and with a new year, I love the new year. I think I’m just one of those guys. I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy, and I started the new year, I’m like, the world possibilities are endless. Where might we go? What might we see? Who knows? The road is in front of us, and we will be looking out the window.

Steve Lewit: Very philosophical. I like it. What will the journey be like in 2026?

Gabriel Lewit: Hopefully better. Every year it’s always hopefully better. Nobody says, “We hope this year is worse.”

Steve Lewit: Sometimes people ask me how I’m doing today, and I say better than yesterday, and they say, “What was wrong yesterday?” I say, “No, yesterday was great. I’m just better than yesterday.” Yeah. I don’t know. Last year was a pretty good year.

Gabriel Lewit: I think so. I mean, look, I’m sure there are things that could have been better.

Steve Lewit: Of course, of course. You look at the year as a whole, I mean, there’s so much going on. There are wars going on. There’s political turmoil. There is all these arguments about inflation and tariffs, and yet it was a pretty good year.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, it depends what you’re measuring it by.

Steve Lewit: For sure. Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: We don’t get into, of course … you guys know this … we don’t stray into politics and world events and things like that, but outside of that, I think it was a pretty good year, a good year for our business, a good year for many of our clients, a good year for the stock market, a good year for my kids. Hopefully it was a great year for you. Just from Steve and I here, we’re hoping you and yours have an even better 2026 ahead.

Steve Lewit: Amen. Well said.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. Well, with that in mind, we’re going to talk about, no surprise, some new year’s themed items here for you today.

Steve Lewit: We’re not going to do resolutions, though, are we?

Gabriel Lewit: I don’t think so.

Steve Lewit: It’s kinda old.

Gabriel Lewit: I don’t think so. Maybe we’ll do those next week.

Steve Lewit: Really mix it up. After we don’t do the … what we should do is talk about resolutions today, and then next week talk about how they’re all gone.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, since you know that we are going to talk about resolutions and you’re asking we’re not doing resolutions, I assume you’re just joking.

Steve Lewit: I am joking.

Gabriel Lewit: I did say we were going to have some new year’s themes to our show today.

Steve Lewit: I know. I’m kidding.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. Well, they’ll be a little different than I think you’re typically used to or might be preparing. We’re also going to do some quotes of the month here in a moment. We’re just going to touch briefly about some recent world events that could impact you money-wise, or maybe they won’t. We’ll see. We’re going to talk about some changes and updates for the new year, some quick hits that might be useful for you, and then we’re going to see where the wind blows.

Steve Lewit: Where the journey takes us, takes us today.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes.

Steve Lewit: Okay. We will flow with the wind on our journey.

Gabriel Lewit: All right, so buckle up. Buckle up. Let’s get the car started, buttercup. All right. Well, let’s start with some quotes of the month, because I like these. They’re just kind of fun, and we don’t want to have all work and no fun here on the show. This one is from Elizabeth Taylor.

Steve Lewit: No. Yes? Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Really. Now who was it?

Steve Lewit: She was a great actress.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, she’s an actress, yes. She says, “Money is the best deodorant.”

Steve Lewit: Elizabeth Taylor would say something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: It took me actually two seconds to be like, “What does she mean?” I was like, “Ah, okay. Yeah, I get it.” Yeah.

Steve Lewit: What do you get?

Gabriel Lewit: What do I get?

Steve Lewit: Yeah. What hit you about that quote?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, at first I just didn’t understand what she meant. Then I think she meant, in theory in this world, some people could have bad habits and be not nice or smell good even, and for some, money would be the cure for all of that.

Steve Lewit: For all of it, right?

Gabriel Lewit: I’m not saying I agree with that statement, but it was just a funny quote to start off the show here.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s like money can solve all your problems.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.

Steve Lewit: Even smelling bad.

Gabriel Lewit: May be. Well, I wonder if she lived that motto herself. Probably not.

Steve Lewit: Well, I don’t want to get into her life, but she lived an interesting life.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. I don’t know anything about her life.

Steve Lewit: She’s very special.

Gabriel Lewit: Interesting. Okay. Well, we’ve got one other one for you, that I guess today’s the day of controversial quotes. You might agree or disagree with that last one, depending on your personality.

Steve Lewit: Or you might understand it or not.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. This next one says here, “People who advocate simplicity have money in the bank. The money came first, not the simplicity.”

Steve Lewit: Yes. When you read that quote to me earlier while we were prepping for the podcast today, I said that is so cool, because is it true that your life becomes easier when you have money, or can you be simple without money?

Gabriel Lewit: This one was very thought-provoking, so I thought it was a good one.

Steve Lewit: I thought it was great.

Gabriel Lewit: It reminded me. I don’t have specific examples, but you always hear the rich people telling you, “Oh, I wouldn’t need all this money that I have.”

Steve Lewit: Yeah, until they don’t have it.

Gabriel Lewit: They’re already rich and they do have it.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, they don’t know. Right.

Gabriel Lewit: That question here, simplicity … can you go back real quick, Gabby, to that quote? Can you have simplicity without money? Sure. Of course you could. Right, but money does certainly make a simple life even simpler.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Also, money makes life more complex. Most of the time, people that have more money actually have more complex lives, and their lives are not simple at all. I think simplicity is an inner, like your inner something.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, this is what makes this one, I think, interesting. By the way, this was from a guy named Douglas Coupland that wrote a book called The Gum Thief, which I have no idea what it is, but that’s irrelevant here. Let’s say you had money in the bank, and you didn’t like doing chores or cleaning your house or mowing your lawn. You could do all those things. Would that make your life simpler?

Steve Lewit: Sure. Sure. Sure.

Gabriel Lewit: You could also have money, and you could buy two houses and have double the bills and double the headaches and double the problems, and rental houses and be a landlord.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, and worry about your investments.

Gabriel Lewit: Does that make life simpler?

Steve Lewit: I don’t know.

Gabriel Lewit: Now, I can tell you … and this is not self-serving in any way whatsoever … but what does make one’s life simpler, I think, is a great financial advisor.

Steve Lewit: This was not self-serving. Yeah. Let me think about that. Which came first? The advisor or the self-serving?

Gabriel Lewit: Maybe you can have your cake and eat it too. In other words, you can have more money in the bank, and you can have the simplicity you’re looking for by working with an advisor that helps manage these things for you.

Steve Lewit: That was very clever. I’m very proud of you for your internal marketing system, and the wind blew us here.

Gabriel Lewit: Oh, man. Oh, man. Just having a little bit of fun.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, I love it. Love it.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, tell us what you think about those quotes. If they spurred any feedback or reaction from you, you of course can email us here, info@sglfinancial.com. We love to hear your comments and feedback about the show always.

Steve Lewit: This is totally off topic, but you know what this reminded me of?

Gabriel Lewit: What’s that?

Steve Lewit: One of my favorite operettas is called Porgy and Bess. Have you ever listened to it?

Gabriel Lewit: I’ve heard of it. I don’t know what it is, though.

Steve Lewit: It’s just a wonderful, wonderful story.

Gabriel Lewit: Did you say Corgi?

Steve Lewit: Porgy, Porgy and Bess.

Gabriel Lewit: Porgy.

Steve Lewit: They live on a plantation. He sings a song called I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’, “and nuttin’s plenty for me. I got my car, I got my mule, I got no misery.” It’s just a great song, and I think of that song off and on a lot through my life. I was just thinking about that with simplicity. I got plenty of nothing.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, you know what that just made me think of?

Steve Lewit: No, I don’t.

Gabriel Lewit: You would never guess this. I read an article about how people applying to Goldman Sachs have some of the lowest job acceptance rates of anywhere. I think it was something like 0.2% of all applicants, of hundreds of thousands of applicants.

Steve Lewit: They get rejected?

Gabriel Lewit: Get rejected from Goldman Sachs. I guess you’d call it, quote/unquote, the lucky few then get to sign up for grueling 80-to-100-hour work weeks, all in the efforts of chasing after big bucks for working at Goldman. Is that really the life you would want? Maybe the mule … was it a mule? The guy with the mule?

Steve Lewit: The guy with the mule.

Gabriel Lewit: I got my mule and that’s it.

Steve Lewit: Porgy and Bess.

Gabriel Lewit: That’s all he needs.

Steve Lewit: I got plenty of nothing. Got my mule.

Gabriel Lewit: Would you rather have 80-to-100-hour Goldman Sachs work weeks, chasing after the almighty dollar, or have a free day ahead of you with your mule to hang out with and sit by the river and sip a lemonade?

Steve Lewit: Well, it’s different. If you’re 25 years old. If you’re 25 years old, full of spunk and mule, that’s great. Look, I have a client who’s 26 years old, in AI, and she’s making over, now. She’s just got a raise from 75,000 to 300, and she’s got a second job that she’s making another … she’s making $400,000 a year in AI, and she’s working like 18 hours a day. She says, “Look, this is the time.” I think she’s got her head screwed on straight. Yeah, this is the time.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, could be. Could be. We’ll see. That rhymed.

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay. Moving on. Let’s talk a little bit about some updates for this year. Now, I just wanted to start. We’re not going to talk about this today. We might even in a show, just depending on what happens. Obviously we saw that Venezuela, a geopolitical event here, right?

Steve Lewit: Very complex.

Gabriel Lewit: A regime toppled. The question is not the political side of this, but is that going to have any impact ramification-wise on the U.S., the economy, the oil situation that that’s going to be a part of? Basically there’s some questions surrounding that, and we’ll see, and so far it hasn’t really been any reaction in the stock market.

Steve Lewit: Well, the stock market seems to be immune to most things right now.

Gabriel Lewit: Right now, yeah.

Steve Lewit: It just wants to go up, and it’s mystifying to me. It’s been mystifying to me for three years now, how little the market … here and there you get a little blurp, but how little the market is reacting to these very serious events.

Gabriel Lewit: Did you say blurp?

Steve Lewit: Blurp.

Gabriel Lewit: Is that a blip or a burp?

Steve Lewit: That’s a combination between a burp and a blip.

Gabriel Lewit: I love when those inadvertent things happen and it becomes a … that’s a good word. A blurp.

Steve Lewit: A blurp.

Gabriel Lewit: I like it.

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, yeah. There’s not much more we wanted to say yet. It was something new that happened this year, so I just thought I’d mentioned it in case you were wondering.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. I mean, we don’t talk politics, but it is very political, and internationally political, domestically political, and those things tend to affect the market.

Gabriel Lewit: They can, and so far …

Steve Lewit: Yet the market hasn’t reacted.

Gabriel Lewit: We’ll keep some tabs on it, if it seems like it’s worthy of further discussion on what you should do. The quick answer is what should you do because of that with your money, nothing different right now.

Steve Lewit: Well, again, it goes back, Gabriel. Look, if you have a good plan, the plan is prepped to go through different weather conditions. When you get a blurp like this … I’m going to coin that. I’m going to put it as a quote someplace. When you get a blurp like this, it’s like, “Okay, that’s in my plan.”

Gabriel Lewit: Exactly.

Steve Lewit: “I planned for that.”

Gabriel Lewit: It’s just a little speed blurp, for you to run over with your car.

Steve Lewit: Exactly. Exactly.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. Well, let’s talk about some things that are changing here in 2026 that will impact your money. These are all little snippets, okay? Of course, you probably are aware of this if you’re on Social Security, but maybe you just signed up last year and you don’t know, but Social Security gets a COLA, cost of living adjustment, and you’re going to receive, if you haven’t noticed already, a raise of 2.8% starting in 2026, up from 2025.

Steve Lewit: Nice.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay?

Steve Lewit: Yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: If you were receiving a $10,000 Social Security check, just for easy math, you would receive $10,280 over the course of the next year. That’s an annual amount, not your monthly check. That would be a nice monthly check. Yeah, so not huge, but it helps.

Steve Lewit: Every little bit helps.

Gabriel Lewit: That’s also going to be offset by the next thing we’re going to talk about here.

Steve Lewit: Because guess what else is going up?

Gabriel Lewit: Your Medicare premium.

Steve Lewit: Exactly.

Gabriel Lewit: Which Part B, gets deducted from your Social Security, is being increased by $17.90 per month, over 12 months is almost $200, right? Depending on how much your Social Security is, a good chunk of that Social Security increase is going to get eaten up by your Medicare Part B premium increase. That total is now $202.90, up again from $185 per month in 2025. It is, in case you’re a data nut, the second-largest dollar jump in the program’s history.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, it’s a big one.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay? Healthcare as a whole is expected to go up substantially this year, both private healthcare plans, ACA plans.

Steve Lewit: Oh, it’s already up.

Gabriel Lewit: Medicare is up.

Steve Lewit: It’s already up, yep. Two years ago, if a couple retired without health insurance two or three years ago, the cost was $25,000 for a couple in the private market. Today it’s probably closer to 40 or 50.

Gabriel Lewit: It’s expensive, okay? Yeah. In case you’re wondering where did my increase go, well, it might have gone to that. It may not seem like much of a net increase after all.

Steve Lewit: You know what’s interesting? I don’t know how … I’ve never looked this up. Do you know how Medicare premiums, how they’re calculated?

Gabriel Lewit: I don’t know the specific mechanisms of how they’re calculated.

Steve Lewit: We’re going to look that up. That would be interesting.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Now, we talked a little bit about this last year, but you’re probably going to be about to file your taxes this year, hopefully. You will receive, of course, an additional tax deduction for seniors. That’s called the senior tax deduction. That’s part of the One …

Steve Lewit: That’s a clever title for that particular event.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, sorry. The enhanced senior tax deduction is part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in 2025, okay? There is a $6,000 per person deduction. It only lasts through 2028, okay, so three years, and it could be up to a $12,000 deduction for couples. Ultimately, however, there’s an AGI, an income threshold phase-out where you may receive some of that or none of that, depending on how much income you otherwise earn, okay?

Of course, some of the other simpler things here. There’s changes to catch-up contribution amounts. If you’re over 50, there’s additional catch-up amounts for this year. A total now this year, 2026, of $32,500 a year for your 401(k)s, 403(b)s, 457s. Of course, there’s now something, you may or may not have known this, a super catch-up for employees age 60, 61, 62 and 63. That’s now even more.

Steve Lewit: Is that only for that age group?

Gabriel Lewit: Uh-huh. Uh-huh, super catch-up.

Steve Lewit: Super catch-up.

Gabriel Lewit: Exactly. Maybe next year it’ll be a super super catch-up for olders. Who knows?

Steve Lewit: No, Gabriel, help me out here. Do I have to put that catch-up in a Roth this year?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. There is additionally changes this year for higher-income earners for catch-up amounts as well. Yep. I just received a letter from our 401(k) plan that just went to all participants. If you are over a certain income threshold … I think it’s 150-ish thousand, don’t quote me on that, somewhere in that range … your catch-up contributions have to be Roth, meaning you cannot put them away pretax any longer. I assume that applies for your super catch-up contributions as well.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, I would say so. Let’s check that to be sure.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. This won’t be an exhaustive list of every and all changes for the year, but there’s also now a new charitable deduction that’s new for 2026 called a universal charitable deduction.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. This is something new to me. I never heard of this before.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Starting in this year, let’s say you wanted to be charitable, but you weren’t able to itemize your income. It wasn’t fair for you, right? You would give away some money to charities, and you couldn’t write it off because you were already taking the standard deduction, not itemizing. Well, nowadays, if you take the standard deduction going forward, you can get a deduction with this universal charitable deduction of up to $1,000.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. It’s not much, but it’s a little bit.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, if you’re already donating … let’s say I have clients that give away $5,000 a year … now up to a thousand of that will be deducted, and if you’re in the 24% tax bracket, save you $240. You get a little bit of a kickback there, tax savings, for being charitably inclined. Better than a kick in the pants, as they say.

Steve Lewit: Nice. A golden kernel in a stack of hay.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. There are more changes, of course. This is just a quick list, not to get too deep in the weeds, but yeah. Taxes, investments, Social Security, Medicare, charitable deductions, lots changing this year. I think going back to we talked about money and simplicity, and I was giving a not-so-subtle plug about the value of an advisor, but these are things that we in our tax department can help to navigate you through, right? Because it’s hard, if you’re not really interested in knowing all this stuff and tracking it in real time, to know how all this stuff is going to impact you year over year.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, and folks, every year we have a summary sheet of all the tax rules that you’re welcome to have. Just let us know if you’d like to have that.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Just email us, info@sglfinancial.com, if you’d like a copy of our new updated tax numbers and key details for the year.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, it’s cool. It’s one page, back and forth. It’s laminated and it’s a great reference, so I use it all the time.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Yeah. If you’d like a copy, email us, info@sglfinancial.com. Did I say that? Info@sglfinancial.com? Yes. We will get that over to you, either electronically or other format, yeah. All right. With that in mind, let’s talk a little bit about last year, okay? A quick look in the rearview mirror as we drive along on our 2026 journey, our new 2026 road, okay? Five ways that the market surprised us in 2025. Well, you said it already. You were surprised by last year, Sir Steve. Can you explain? Can you elaborate on that?

Steve Lewit: Well, I keep saying. I feel like I repeat myself all the time. Look, I look at all the economic data, and the economic data is good in some areas, weak in other areas. I look at the pricing of the market. It’s overpriced, according to history. I look at the S&P. That’s being run by seven companies, especially Nvidia, and the market seems to go up and down as Nvidia goes up and down. All of those are key landmarks or road marks that say that this is a very tenuous market. I’ve been saying that for two years already or maybe even longer, and the market just has a tremendous resistance to it and keeps going up.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Well, if you don’t know this already, well, it bears repeating, but we don’t believe in market timing here. The research doesn’t bear that out or support that. Anytime you’re thinking, “Gosh, let me get out of the market,” that’s usually not recommended, right? There’s other ways you could …

Steve Lewit: Well, I’ll give you an example of that.

Gabriel Lewit: Sure.

Steve Lewit: I was talking to a gentleman, very wealthy and a potential client. This was a year and a half ago. I distinctly remember this conversation, because this guy is really interesting and he knows everybody that knows anybody, and had quite a history of personal success. I remember this conversation, and he said, “Steve, I’m not going to do business with you.” I said, “Okay, I understand. Not everybody’s a good fit and all that.” He said, “Well, that’s not the reason. All my friends, and they’re bigwigs, and these are the people that know, are telling me this market is coming down.”

I said, “Well, come on,” I’ll make up a name, “Frank. You know you can’t time the market.” “These are people that know, Steve.” “Okay, so where’s your money?” “It’s all in cash, and I’m just waiting.” That was a year and a half ago, and I will bet you he’s still in cash today.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, let’s see. What would he have missed? Frank would have missed equities, U.S. equities, up 17% last year.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, but he’s a year and a half. It’s even more than that.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. That’s a lot of money to leave on the table, and that’s the challenge with market timing. You miss one year, let’s say because it was at highs last year and you could have made an argument that it could have crashed, but it didn’t and it went up 17%, so now you’re 17% further behind. Even if the market crashes this year, the level that it has to crash for you to win on having sat in cash for so long is high, right?

Steve Lewit: Well, and then you have to know when to get in.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah.

Steve Lewit: Because getting out is easy. Getting in, when the market goes down, people don’t get in. What they say to themselves is, “You know what? I think it’s going to go down further. I’m just going to wait.”

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, they wait, and then they miss out.

Steve Lewit: Then it goes up a little bit and they say, “Oh, no, it’s not going to really go up, it’s going to really come down,” and they don’t get their money back in the market.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, stocks had a great year. U.S. stocks, 17% gained.

Steve Lewit: Tremendous.

Gabriel Lewit: Despite some volatility. We had a tariff Liberation Day back in April, if you remember that.

Steve Lewit: Sure.

Gabriel Lewit: Of course, the market dropped almost 20% at that point. There’s ongoing AI bubble concerns. There’s been volatility. There’s obviously been geopolitical events, all sorts of stuff. We have a market and economic update that we do for our clients here coming up in February, and we’re going to break into more detail on all of this stuff. Yeah, good year for U.S. stocks, a better year for international stocks.

Steve Lewit: Amazing, and this was totally unexpected.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, not totally.

Steve Lewit: Well, actually you’re right, because two years ago there were a lot of predictions saying that international is going to outperform the U.S., and those predictions actually came true.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Well, look, here’s the thing, guys. Diversifying your portfolio means not market timing, because if you try to jump between U.S. and international, which is going to be which in a given year, you’re probably going to get that wrong more often than you’ll get it right. Diversifying means you have some element of both, and in some years that’ll be a good thing and some years it’ll be a bad thing. Well, guess what? Last year, that was a very good thing if you had internationals in your portfolio, because developed and emerging markets on average beat U.S. stocks by about 10-plus percentage points last year.

Steve Lewit: Tremendous.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay? Very, very, very good, and I think that is projected really to continue into this year due to weaker U.S. dollar, more attractive international valuations, strong market performance in Europe, China, et cetera. Yeah, some interesting things there to keep on the radar. Bonds did well last year.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Finally, right?

Gabriel Lewit: Interest rates came down. When interest rates come down, bond prices tend to go up. Core bonds, what we generally call aggregate intermediate-term bonds, up nearly 7% in 2025. Of course, those help provide some downside protection and some income yield. Generally we recommend intermediate-term versus long-term or ultra-short-term for safety, which depends. The bond world’s a very interesting world. A lot that you can do with it, depending on what you’re trying to do.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Without getting into it, there are today a lot of alternatives to bonds that really work very well.

Gabriel Lewit: Yes. Yes. Correct, yeah. Then of course last year, gold, silver. Gold goes to record highs.

Steve Lewit: Will it ever stop?

Gabriel Lewit: There’s people with FOMO. Fear of missing out is strong in the world. We talked about this last year on some of our shows, but be cautious there, because those types of record rallies and runs, they don’t just continue indefinitely, right? They come to an end, and sometimes they come sharply to an end, or aka a cliff, and you don’t want to be necessarily holding the bag if you’re trying to get some short-term profits.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Things like gold and commodities can come down really, really fast.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Yeah. Those are just some things, right? All said and done, right, asset class returns were very strong, and we had actually a very good year for the market. Most asset classes were positive. I think Bitcoin ended up it had a big drop at the end of the year. It ended up pretty soft on the year.

Steve Lewit: Yeah. Where is it? Where is it now? Can you guys look it up?

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah, it’s like hovering I think around 92,000 or 90,000.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, that’s down from 130.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. It had almost a 30% drop at one point toward the end of the year.

Steve Lewit: Yeah, but that is Bitcoin. That’s what Bitcoin does.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. If you’ve got questions, of course, about the stock market, let us know. We’re here to help guide you through it. If you’re interested and you’re a client of ours, keep that on your radar. We’re going to do an economic-inclined event coming up soon if you have questions. As you always like to do and talk about in some of your workshops and seminars, Steve, this overarching question, where should my money be now …

Steve Lewit: Definitely, yeah.

Gabriel Lewit: … is one of those things …

Steve Lewit: We’re going to talk about that.

Gabriel Lewit: … people tend to … they like to ask that question, especially in new years. “Should I do something new with my money? What should I be aware of?” Of course, what’s everybody’s favorite question? What is everyone’s favorite question for the year ahead, Steve? I’m going to pop-quiz you on this one.

Steve Lewit: What is everyone’s favorite question?

Gabriel Lewit: For the new year, for the world of money and investments and the markets. What’s everyone’s number-one favorite question to ask?

Steve Lewit: “Will I make 15%?” No, no.

Gabriel Lewit: No.

Steve Lewit: “Will I lose money?” No.

Gabriel Lewit: It starts with the word what. I’ll give you a … what will, what will. It starts with what will.

Steve Lewit: What will I do with my money this year?

Gabriel Lewit: No. What will the?

Steve Lewit: What will the market do this year?

Gabriel Lewit: Yes.

Steve Lewit: Yes. I got it.

Gabriel Lewit: You got it. Yes.

Steve Lewit: Yay. Just a few clues and breadcrumbs.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Isn’t that everyone’s favorite question?

Steve Lewit: Always. Always.

Gabriel Lewit: This time of the year, every meeting we have at the start of the year. “Gabe.”

Steve Lewit: It’s their favorite question every month of the year.

Gabriel Lewit: “What’s the market going to do this year?”

Steve Lewit: “Hold on. Let me get my fortune teller ball out here and let me … oh, it’s broken again. Oh, my gosh. It’s still not working.”

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. I know that question is on your mind. I know it is. It’s on my mind.

Steve Lewit: Well, how could it not be?

Gabriel Lewit: What will the market do this year?

Steve Lewit: Let me take a look at my broken fortune teller.

Gabriel Lewit: Of course, we all want to know the answer to that question, but as you all know, how could I possibly give you that answer?

Steve Lewit: Right.

Gabriel Lewit: If I said I definitively know, just like your friend Frank and his bigwig friends that all are, quote/unquote, in the know, “Oh, the market’s going down this year.”

Steve Lewit: They were wrong.

Gabriel Lewit: Right. Nobody knows. You can have educated inferences and guesses and data and research and you still don’t know, not with a definitive level of confidence, okay? How do you plan around that? Where should your money be? What does data hint at or probability say? Well, markets are very high. They’re very, very high. They might still go higher, but they also could drop, right? That’s the real truth.

Steve Lewit: That’s the truth, yes.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay, which is no different than saying markets go up and down. We all know that.

Steve Lewit: It depends on what money you’re talking about, if you’re talking about short-term money, if you’re talking about liquid money, if you’re talking about money that you have slated for income, money that’s slated for growth. It’s not just money. It’s what is the purpose of that money and what’s the best way to invest it.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Now, Steve, I did something special for you this episode that you might not have even noticed.

Steve Lewit: Thank you.

Gabriel Lewit: Do you know what it was?

Steve Lewit: Yes. You only interrupted me I think two times today. What was it?

Gabriel Lewit: You said you didn’t want to do New Year’s resolutions on the show this year, today.

Steve Lewit: Oh, yes, and we didn’t get to it.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, we were having some good conversations, and I stretched out a few things too.

Steve Lewit: Let’s do one. Let’s do one.

Gabriel Lewit: No, we’ll do these next episode.

Steve Lewit: I want to know from you.

Gabriel Lewit: We’ll tease them a little bit.

Steve Lewit: No, I want to tease you. I want to hear from you. What is your number-one new year? Real quick, I saw you look at your watch, but what is your new year’s resolution, top of mind?

Gabriel Lewit: Me personally?

Steve Lewit: You personally.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, I already started it in December.

Steve Lewit: You did?

Gabriel Lewit: I did.

Steve Lewit: How much weight did you lose?

Gabriel Lewit: Well, no. I mean, I’m working out.

Steve Lewit: Yes.

Gabriel Lewit: Taking care of my health this year. I sort of neglected it last year. At one point last year, some of my clients know that I had a herniated disc, and I was literally on my back, couldn’t move for a full week, and then I was out of commission.

Steve Lewit: He could eat.

Gabriel Lewit: I was out of commission for months, okay?

Steve Lewit: Boy, could he eat.

Gabriel Lewit: Anywho, it’s not just that. As I get older and as you start hearing more stories of people having bad health effects, I started thinking, “You gotta pay attention to your health. You gotta pay attention to your health.” Starting to exercise more and more frequently. My kids are finally getting to an age where it’s a lot easier to do that. That’s my resolution, to continue onwards for this year.

Steve Lewit: What you started in December, yes. Excellent. Excellent. I’m with you. I’m with you.

Gabriel Lewit: Are you going to share yours?

Steve Lewit: Only if you ask.

Gabriel Lewit: Well, of course. What’s yours?

Steve Lewit: My goal this year is to be a better communicator. I’m a good communicator, but I’m not a great communicator. I’ve really noticed that.

Gabriel Lewit: I know. You say words like blurp.

Steve Lewit: Well, I was thinking. I got another one. No, no. I think those are fine words. It’s just communication is hard, because you say one thing and you think people hear you one way, but then they hear you their way through their filter. I want to be more aware of what people are hearing and what I’m saying. I just want to be clearer.

Gabriel Lewit: Can I poke fun of you on something else?

Steve Lewit: Absolutely you can.

Gabriel Lewit: To end our show?

Steve Lewit: I can’t wait.

Gabriel Lewit: I thought you were going to say you were going to publish your book. Wasn’t that your resolution last year?

Steve Lewit: It’s at the publisher. I finished. I did.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. Okay.

Steve Lewit: I finished in December.

Gabriel Lewit: Folks, Steve’s had a book he’s been writing that’s going to be released this year, for the last eight years.

Steve Lewit: August. August 25th.

Gabriel Lewit: We’ll believe it when we see it.

Steve Lewit: No, no. This is the real deal. I’m done. It’s the real deal. I can’t wait to show it to you all.

Gabriel Lewit: Okay, okay. Well, anyways, folks, we are wishing you and your family and everybody close to you a wonderful new year, good health, good cheer, good financial fortune, simplicity, okay, and all other good things, whatever they may be. If we can help you in any way, if you have questions we can answer for you, please give us a call, 847-499-3330, or go to our website, sglfinancial.com. Click Contact Us or email us anytime, info@sglfinancial.com. Of course, go Bears. I hope they beat …

Steve Lewit: Yeah, Saturday night.

Gabriel Lewit: By the time you’re listening to us on Sunday, we’ll know. If you’re a Packers fan, I’m rooting for you as well, but rooting for my team a little bit more.

Steve Lewit: Such a political statement. Well said.

Gabriel Lewit: Yeah. May it be a competitive game.

Steve Lewit: Be well, everybody. Stay healthy.

Gabriel Lewit: All right. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

Steve Lewit: Bye, now.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Our Two 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.

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