036 There’s a Mutual Fund for That

(Complete Show Notes Below)

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In the 36th episode of the Financial Procast:

We Answer Questions from Our Listeners

Instead of the normal podcast where we'd discuss a myriad of topics from the financial world, we've decided to break the mold a bit and devote an entire episode to answering questions we've received from our listeners/readers.  We get questions emailed to us all the time and from time-to-time it makes sense for us to go through and answer some of them live in our podcast so that our entire community can benefit from the discussion.

Here is a transcript of the questions:

1.  Hi Guys,

I recently read an article found here: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100653766

I found it fascinating that gen y appears to be outpacing the baby boomers when it comes to savings rates.  Do you think this is a sign that we may return to a more sane way of life when it comes to retirement planning?

Also it’s interesting to see that gen y appears to be in a better situation financially than other generations.  Sign that not all is lost?

Hope you find the information as interesting as I did.

Frank, IL

 

2.  Dear Brandon and Brantley,

My husband and I have been having a pretty lengthy discussion about retirement planning and we’ve asked a few other people this same question.  Since I’ve been following your podcast and blog for a few months I decided I’d see if I could get your opinion as well.

We presently live in Minnesota, and have most of our life.  It’s not bad (Winter isn’t always fun) but expenses aren’t exactly low.  We’ve done a pretty good job saving for retirement so far, but I still think we should plan on moving to a place with warmer weather and lower taxes when we retire.  My husband—God bless his soul—happens to enjoy the cooler weather (or maybe all this cold air exposure is effecting his thinking) seems to think there’s just as much expense in living in a state like Florida or Tennessee as there is up here in Minnesota.

I’m wondering, do people often retire to states like these two to save money in taxes and other expenses?  Does it work?

Thanks.

Jennifer, MN

 

3.  Greetings,

I purchased an indexed universal life policy from Aviva back in 2009.  I maybe should have spent a little more time researching the company, and now I’m a tad worried about news that not only did Aviva sell their US business to Athene, but that some other company will be buying the life insurance business.

I’d really hate to leave this product, as I pay a pretty hefty fee to do so, but I’m really worried about the company now and I’ve been watching ratings for the company go down since I bought the policy.

What should I do?  Stick it out or bear the pain of losing money and move to someone else I won’t stay up at night worry about. 

I rolled money from an old whole life policy that had done pretty well into this policy, and I’m presently paying $10,000 per year into this policy. 

Are there any tricks or pieces of advice you can offer in terms of getting out of this policy?

Thanks

Paul, MD

 

4.  Hello,

My financial advisor, good guy and all, never seems interested in talking about investment options outside of mutual funds.  My wife jokes that whenever I mention I wonder if we should consider investment idea X, that if we asked our guy he’d tell us, “there’s a mutual fund for that.”

Are mutual funds really that good?  Or should we be a tad more insistent?  I know you two aren’t crazy about owning gold, but I’m still convinced it might be a good idea, problem is, I can’t get my guy to talk about anything outside of gold mutual funds.

Is this a sign that I need to look for someone else?

Thanks.

Michael, TX

 

5.  Hey Brandon and Brantley,

I have a slightly odd ball question that I wanted your opinion on.  Practically speaking, if a life insurance policy violated the MEC test, but no one ever reported to the IRS.  Is it likely that the IRS would ever catching this in any sort of audit?

I recently had someone suggest that this is a low probability event, especially as the policy gets older.  What do you think?

All the best,

Jacob, AZ

 

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