Alabama financial guru: Do you have a plan to cover the necessities in life DURING your retirement?

Birmingham, Alabama-based financial guru Jeff Roberts, who was recently named one of the top private wealth advisors in the nation by Barron’s®, came on Yellowhammer Radio to lay out the facts so people can decide for themselves.

The full conversation with Mr. Roberts can be heard on the Yellowhammer Radio podcast or in the video above, and a lightly edited transcript of his interview with Yellowhammer’s Andrea Tice can be read below.

Subscribe to the Yellowhammer Radio Podcast on iTunes. Learn more about Jeff Roberts’ private wealth advisory practice at JeffRobertsAndAssociates.com.

Andrea Tice:

Welcome back to Yellowhammer Radio. On the show with us today is local financial guru, Jeff Roberts. Jeff is the founder of Jeff Roberts & Associates, and his team of seven advisors can help simplify your complex wealth management needs. They are exceptional financial advisors who have provided sophisticated financial planning and advice to high-net-worth clients for a combined number of years, 131 combined years. We’re going to have him on the show. The seven people, Jeff, are you there?

Jeff Roberts:

I am indeed.

Andrea Tice:

Yeah, hey, Jeff.

Jeff Roberts:

Hello.

Andrea Tice:

I just noticed that the seven advisors you have on your staff matches up with the seventh award you received recently from Barron’s Top 1,200 Advisors for 2017, so that’s a nice matching there. I think so.

Jeff Roberts:

It is coincidental, but wonderful. Those are the very people that help us to serve clients extremely well and to be recognized by Barron’s, in addition to the tremendous team that we’ve got of client support staff. The new one we brought in today, his name is Courtney. I’ll give a shout out to for-

Andrea Tice:

Oh, okay. Her first day?

Jeff Roberts:

Being on our team and serving our clients well.

Andrea Tice:

That’s great. That’s great. Hi, Courtney. Glad to have you on board, too. Last week, you introduced the 3-Minute Confident Retirement check that was found on your website. Everybody has three minutes to spare, so it was good that you pointed that out for people who want to find out where they are in the future for retirement. I know you planned to drill down today on the Confident Retirement approach, so you want to start out with that?

Jeff Roberts:

Absolutely. Absolutely. The Confident Retirement approach is kind of an exclusive tool that we use when trying to help clients who are trying to get that word “confidence” and weave that into their life when they think about their future retirement plans, or even while in retirement. It gives us a straightforward framework to create a sound retirement plan, it provides an income for a lifetime, and it’s composed essentially of four components. If you think about the Confident Retirement approach, the easiest way to do it is, I want you to think of the four components, and in your head, I want you to picture a triangle. If you break the triangle into four horizontal layers, if you will.

The widest layer sits on the bottom of the triangle, and that’s the section that we call covering essentials. That is necessities in life that we simply have to cover. The next layer up is going to be ensuring lifestyle, and that’s lifestyle expenses that include the goals that you have for retirement like travel, and dining out, and hobbies, and that sort of thing. The next layer up is going to be the unexpected things that pop into retirement where we’re preparing for the unexpected. Those are the things like accidents or disability, and making sure that you’ve built into your sound retirement plan, the unexpected. The last tip of the iceberg, so to speak, the tip of the triangle is leaving a legacy. That is passing to survivors, families, charities, and causes that are important to you the wealth that you’ve been able to accumulate.

What we’ve found is if you break down those four basic areas of if can make sure that you can cover essentials, you assure that you have income to provide for your lifestyle, prepare for the unexpected, and leave a legacy, if you tackle those four things, then you simply will have confidence in planning toward retirement or in retirement. So it’s a framework.

Andrea Tice:

Yeah. I remember seeing that on your website when you directed us to that page where you start the 3-Minute Confident Retirement check. Let me ask you this. Let’s drill down a little bit more on just that first initial base, that foundational base of the triangle where it’s covering essentials. Can you give us examples for people who are listening to understand what is an essential expense.

Jeff Roberts:

Yeah. The first thing, and I figured over the next couple weeks, we would tackle each one of these layers of the triangle.

Andrea Tice:

Okay.

Jeff Roberts:

The first one being covering essentials, which, if you think about it, any foundation of retirement strategy, it starts with covering all the essential expenses that are considered predictable and recurring. These are the ongoing essential necessities in life. Because financial markets are uncertain, we believe that essential expenses should be covered by solutions that are guaranteed and provide stable income. Virtually everybody in retirement has already accumulated one or maybe multiple forms of a guaranteed income or stable income that they have in place, notably for example, social security. Some people might have a defined benefit plan sometimes called a pension. Those are components that provide a guaranteed income to cover the expenses that we know are going to be there no matter what every single month.

Andrea Tice:

Okay. You’re mentioning these stable income sources that you’re going to use to cover the essentials, and we could go down a long road for a long time on even just one, but you want to just quickly give us some of the complexities of just one that you have to deal with?

Jeff Roberts:

Yeah. Let me start with a couple just to breakdown the expenses themselves that are common. For example, we see expenses as things like mortgage payments that people might have for a period of time in retirement, if they still have a debt for a period of time. That’s going to be something that’s there every month. Home maintenance expenses, those are going to be there pretty much regularly. Food, you’re going to have a grocery bill regularly. Medical expenses, you’re going to have that systematically, too. Utility costs, real estate taxes, insurance premiums. Clothing expenses, probably not as much in retirement as essentials, but some. Taxes, regular federal and state taxes. Those are things that when you get up every single month, you’re going to have those expenses that have got to be covered. Those are examples of the expenses.

To your point on incomes, we believe that there should be certain sources of incomes that we set aside to tackle just the essentials. For example, we mentioned social security being one. That can be a fixed guaranteed income. Some people have a pension. It’s going to be fully covered or insured pension that will provide some income as well. If you don’t have that income source, you might consider things like an immediate annuity or a variable annuity that includes a Living Benefit Rider for life. You can have a certificate of deposit that’s FDIC guaranteed, or face-amount certificates where the principle’s guaranteed. U.S. Federal Securities. Those are all examples of vehicles that can provide a guarantee of income to where people in retirement can know no matter what I do, no matter how much I screw up myself financially, I have these guarantees that are going to cover those essential expenses.

Andrea Tice:

Wow, that’s great. You clearly have a lot of options in your portfolio to advise people about in getting that one level, that base level established and on its way, so that’s really-

Jeff Roberts:

And you make a good point when you ask that question a second ago. Well, if we pick one of those and drill down any one of those, what are some of the questions or things that we might need to be considering just for one of those different sources? I could pick one like, say, social security. Remember, there’s so much complexity to all of this, and we try and make it easy for folks, but just to give you an example.

If you’re just trying to focus on the easiest and most guaranteed of incomes in retirement social security, there’s a whole litany of questions that you’ve got to ask, like how old will you be when you retire? Because that significantly impacts how much your social security retirement check is. Will you take social security early, at full retirement age, or let it grow 8% per year after that all the way to age 70? Your health, how is your health? That is going to determine your social security or whether you might want to take it now or not. Your spouse’s health might have an impact on when you take social security. Will you work after age 62? That will determine some impact on your social security. Will you make more than the $16,920 earnings limit while being in retirement and having social security?

Those are, I don’t know, six or seven questions that dramatically impact just one decision of taking social security, and if you’re looking at multiple pieces all on this one level of covering essentials, you can realize there’s a lot to take into consideration.

Andrea Tice:

Wow, yeah. If anything, Jeff, you’re the man who provides the questions that need to be asked, and then the answers.

Jeff Roberts:

That’s the goal. That’s the goal.

Andrea Tice:

Yeah. If anyone has an interest in getting help or they want to be more confident towards their retirement, what should they do?

Jeff Roberts:

The easiest way is reach out to us at (205) 313-9150, and we’re happy to arrange a time to talk or get together. A couple tools, you can go on to jeffrobertsandassociates.com, and if you’ll scroll down, you’ll find very easily a 3-Minute Confident Retirement check, which is a tool that will help you to figure out where you are in terms of your own level of confidence in planning for retirement. We’re happy to help any way we can with folks.

Andrea Tice:

All right. Yes, I have been on the website. We did it last week. It was very simple, very nicely done, easy to access. For those who are interested in going through that checklist, you can do that. There’s no problems with that. They’re not necessarily going to get a call just by going on the website. They’re just going to go through-

Jeff Roberts:

No, no, no. That’s a great point. If you go to the website, it’s just an online tool. You have the ability when you complete the 3-Minute Retirement check, if you want to pass that on …

Andrea Tice:

Did I just lose him? I think I just lost him. Are you there, Jeff?

Steve West:

I think we’ve lost him.

Andrea Tice:

Uh oh. I’m still on the air, right?

Steve West:

Oh, yeah.

Andrea Tice:

Okay. All right. Jeff, I’m so sorry. We lost you, and we’re about to head into a break, so let me just wrap it up.

If you need to call Jeff, Jeff Roberts & Associates, (205) 313-9150 is the number. Then, like he said, you can go to the website, which I’m going blank on, jeffrobertsandassociates, that’s right. Look it up on the internet, and you can get to Jeff Roberts & Associates that way.

Also, we just covered the four parts of a Confident Retirement. We’re going to do the next three in the next three weeks. The first one he just covered was covering the essentials, and there’s a lot to consider there. He asked a lot of questions. It’s very thorough, and he drills down because it’s so important to cover the essentials and to have a stable income in your retirement that will cover the essentials. So if you need help with that, call Jeff Roberts.