The Howie Carr Radio Network
Meet the Experts: Steve Anzuoni of Fairway Financial
You're never too young to begin planning for retirement. Steven Anzuoni of Fairway Financial will tell you that you're never too old, either. Join Howie as he learns from Steve's nearly four decades of experience about the twists and turns that come with planning for your financial future. Fairway Financial has offices in Hyannis and Plymouth, Massachusetts, and can be reached at fairwayfinancial.net.
Disclaimer: Steven Anzuoni is a licensed insurance provider by the division of insurance and is not registered as an investment advisor in the Commonwealth of MA.
- Duration:
- 24m
- Broadcast on:
- 10 May 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to another episode of Meet the Experts with Howie Car, a new podcast featuring long-form interviews with guests who have a specialized field of expertise. You're never too young to begin planning for retirement, and today's guest will tell you you may not be too old, either. Steve Anzoni of Fairway Financial has nearly four decades of financial experience under his belt. Join Steve on today's episode as he discusses the most stable and surefire ways to ensure a comfortable retirement, what pitfalls you can avoid, and whether staying in Massachusetts during your golden years is the best way to go. Here's your host of Meet the Experts, Howie Car. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to this week's episode of Meet the Experts. This week's expert is Steve Anzoni. He is Cape Cod's retirement income specialist. He's a graduate of Norwich University. He started with John Hancock back in 1986. He began Fairway Financial in 1999 to serve his clients more objectively. He holds a retirement income certified professional designation from the American College. He's appeared on various shows, a neck on Boston 25, and Grace Curly shows, matter of fact. He has his own weekend radio program, Ready Set Retire, on WXDK, our Cape Cod Sister Station 95.1 FM. That's on Saturdays at 6 AM. And he often conducts complimentary financial workshops to address the importance of establishing an effective retirement planning strategy, taking into account your social security, the impact of taxes and inflation. And that's, of course, getting worse and worse. Legacy planning, and again, that's something that particularly worry about in Massachusetts, asset protection, Ditto, and guaranteed income for life. He's the author of the National Best-Selling Book, Tea Up Your Retirement, and you can receive a copy of that book. And if you want to get a copy of Stephen Zoney's book, Tea Up Your Retirement, 508, 552, 3230. Welcome, Steve. Thanks for being with us here on Meet the Experts. Glad to be here. It's great. Now, you're known as Cape Cod's retirement income specialist. How can you help people protect and grow income in retirement? Well, that's the number one concern, right? Is people today are really concerned about outliving their income because pensions are a thing of the past. And they've become better saviors, ironically, because we have to. In 401K is a great tool for that. But they're not guaranteed to last as long as we are. And so that's a big concern that I see out there, Howie, is how can I replace my working paycheck with something that's going to be there for me along with social security? And that's what we do, and that's what we have been doing for over 35 years, is to help people retire with greater financial security. What's the biggest worry and fear that you see when people come in to see you? Well, I mean lately, of course, it's been inflation. It's been the economy. It's been illegal immigration coming into this state. A lot of concerns going on with the economy. And so I just try to say, look, we can't control everything. So let's try to control what we can, which is our money, and take a look at not just the traditional methods. Like, you know, everyone knows what a 401k is. But does everyone know what a lifetime guaranteed income annuity is, and just educate people? Howie, I think that's the thing people want, is to be educated properly on how they can retire, and what methods are out there to be used for it. We're with Steve Anzoni, and he is Cape Cod's retirement specialist at Fairway Financial in Hyannis with a second office in Plymouth. Steve Anzoni, where can people reach you? By phone, by internet, order your book. Sure, by phone, it's 508-398-3337. And on the internet, it is fairwayfinancial.net. I think you mentioned inflation, and a lot of people now, they say, okay, I'm okay right now. But look, the prices have gone up with Biden, 30, 40%, in three or four years. If I've got 20 years left, my, what seems to be a livable pension, or a livable annuity, or whatever, drawdown, is not gonna be anything. What do you tell them? Yeah, well, it's a concern, because Social Security has a CPI adjustment, which ironically, a few years ago, finally went up, 8.5%, something like that. But of course, that was followed with seven years of zero previous to that. Right, and tragically, the year before inflation was like really over 12% in reality. It was, yeah, that's the reality. So there are products out there that are designed to keep pace with inflation. So you can get into retirement income planning with a product that is X number of dollars today, and we'll use an inflation factor, either three or three and a half percent, or even an index, a stock index for gain only. So there's no threat of loss of your check. So there are very innovative products that are out there today. And I'll tell you, I've been in business a long time. This is the highest interest rate environment that I have seen in over 20 years for these products. So it's really a fascinating time to take a look at them again. But again, the reason is because people are so frightened and spooked by the inflationary trends, the deficit spending, the printing of money. I mean, everybody's talking about Zimbabwe, Juan Perones, Argentina, the Weimar Republic. I mean, isn't that why their interest rates are so high? It is pretty scary what's going on out there, and we can't control it. And of course, back in the late '70s, we had a bout with inflation too. So it's not like we haven't seen this game before, but I think it's more exposed because of social media and everything out there. So people are even more aware of what's going on. But ironically, if you're close to retirement, or especially if you have no debt, high inflation can be a friend a little bit when it comes to interest rates. I mean, banks are starting to pay this thing called interest rates now. And two years ago, you were lucky to get point one on your money. Now you're getting five, five and a quarter on CDs. It's not keeping up with eight and 12, but it's certainly better than point one. When should people decide to take Social Security? I've read that most people start taking it the first month they can. That's the question, right? I mean, it's so hard to predict because if you're still working and you take it before you're full retirement age, you're gonna be giving a lot of it back 'cause you can only make so much money while you're still working. So the real key, in my opinion, when I meet with people is if you're married, I always suggest that the higher income earner try to defer that Social Security as long as they can because for most people, that's their only pension left. And remember, when one spouse dies, the survivor gets the higher of the two checks. So I try to go that way, but there's a lot more involved. There's your health, there's whether you're still working, there's other assets that you have that you can take. So it's not really a simple solution. I know a lot of people are concerned about the government and they wanna take it as soon as they can. I mean, hey, I just became eligible a few weeks ago. So I can take my Social Security. I'm not, but that seems to be the thing is people are very scared about, is it going to be here? 'Cause they keep hearing it's gonna run out, it's gonna run out. - Well, I think even scarier is means testing. They're paying billions and trillions and trillions of dollars to illegal aliens. They're not paying in, they're never gonna pay in. - Right. - So they gotta get the money from somewhere. - It's scary. Well, I mean, listen, for the last 20 years, they've been, well, borrowing it as they put it to pay off other debts like Medicaid, because frankly, that was abused many years ago by very, very wealthy people who could have self-paid, but got fancy trust done and used Medicaid to do it. So that was part of the problem, certainly not all of it. That's what I'm seeing out there is that frightening thing that you said that people are listening to the news and they see what's going on, like you said, with immigration and the money going out the window to these people that are never gonna pay into this thing. And I get it. I mean, right now, I'm steadfast myself on waiting, but like I tell people, situations can change. And if you're not sure, don't do it yet, because once you do it, it's irrevocable. - So what makes fairway financial different than other financial services? No offense, but there's a million different places to go. A lot of them have weekend shows on the talk station. You know, what makes you guys different? - No, you're right about that. And I think what separates me is the over 35 years of experience. So I mean, I have real life experience dealing with issues. I've have a great team, a great staff. Kelly is a great marketing staff with me. She helps me greatly. Kimberly is in the office that helps. And my wife, Tracy, is there too. So we really have a good team and we support people through not just what we offer them, but when they come in like, we see people lose a spouse. I mean, it's unbelievable the emotions they go through. And we have them come in and we have a sit down and we just chat and we try to help them with everything they have to try to just have them get through that process because it is very difficult time. So I think for us, our customer service stands out like no one's business. I really feel that we're very strong there. And the experience certainly helps too. - Where can people go if they want to reach out? - Our main office is we have the new office at right at 540 Main Street in Hyannis. So we're right behind Columbus that everybody knows, Columbus. And we're right next to Fitness 500, great gym right next to the office. So it's a great location. We're very proud of it. We put the studio right in there and people love to come in and see the studio and have a sit down with us in the back. And it's very casual. The first meeting is, I called it the shoebox meeting because back in the day people would have their stuff in a shoebox and they'd come in and we'd talk about their statements. Of course today they have laptops and all that stuff but it's a very laid back meeting. We just chat about where you're at. You know, when do you got going for you? What are you concerned about? What keeps you up at night? And just talk about that and how we can help them get to where they need to be. - How much money do you need to retire? That's kind of a crazy question. There isn't really. - It isn't, you see the commercials all the time. You know, they make it sound like if you don't have a million dollars, you know, you can't live and you can't do this. A lot of it has to do with your debt. I have clients, howie. Believe it or not, live in Massachusetts and live off their social security check. I mean, I don't know how they do it. Well, I do. I mean, they have no debt literally but most people aren't in that situation. So, I mean, it's nice to have a million but it's more important to have guaranteed lifetime income. That's the ticket because that can never go away. And I'm talking, even when the money you started with goes away, the check never goes away. It's literally like a pension. - So, you read stories one day in the paper, how I retire and live well on, as you say, like 10,000 bucks a year and then the next day, there's a story. I'm going broke, retired, making 500,000 a year. So, what's the difference, just debt or what? - It's how you live, you know, during your years and if you were making really, really good money, why were working? Let's say 250, 300,000, you're used to that and if your budget is up to that while you're working and you have that debt carrying into retirement, I mean, I met someone who had three and a half, four million dollars and he couldn't afford to retire. And like you said earlier, I have a client who's got maybe 250,000. He doesn't even need the interest, how he? He's living off the social security check and he's comfortable. So, it really depends on your lifestyle, right? How much are you going to travel? Where are you going to go? What are you going to do to determine whether you can retire or not? And that's one thing we do offer is to sit there and say, look, let's take a look at your situation today, what your expectations are. Let's run some numbers and see if it's even realistic to try to retire in a year or two. - Now, at Fairway Financial, you're based in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but does it make sense for any retired person to remain in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? - That's tough because financially, probably not, but emotionally, my grandkids are here, right? They're in Rhode Island. So, yeah, does Florida sound appealing from a tax point? Sure, does New Hampshire sound appealing from a tax point? Absolutely. But ultimately, for me anyway, it comes down to family and friends that I have locally. I mean, I have a lot of friends in Florida, believe me, three of them retired to Florida. So, I'm down there quite a bit and you are neck of the woods and on the other side. - You talk about legacies. I mean, you know, you stick around here, you're gonna get killed if you weren't already dead. - Listen, it's a high tax state, but there are vehicles out there that you can have tax-free for generations to come. Life insurance is one of them. - So, I mean, what would you suggest for people who would like to remain in the state, but fear being crushed? - Yeah, well-- - Or already a heartbeat, crushed. - Well, the idea is you gotta just do the planning, right? You gotta allow for the taxation and everything else and just make sure the numbers work that way. And again, if you want to leave a legacy, what I try to say to them is look, you need to take care of yourself first and the kids second, because if you don't take care of yourself first, the kids are gonna be taking care of you sooner than you think. So, I try to make sure that they're financially stable and then I try to use, like for example, monies from 401ks or IRAs. If you could just take a piece of that and put it in this pot that you don't own, right? An irrevocable trust funded with life insurance. That is the greatest legacy wealth transfer on the planet. - Life insurance? - Yeah, for dollars, small dollars away into this big trust. - It sounds so old-fashioned. - Old-fashioned, there's nothing wrong with old-fashioned. It's been around a lot longer than new-fashioned. And it works, you know, boring can work. I've seen a commercial the other day, right? Boring works and we're going through all this stuff. And I kind of smiled at that and says, yeah, that's kind of what I do. I mean, I don't get into exciting graphs and shots and things, I just solve problems. And if you've got a legacy issue, I'm going to say, look, you can't do it better than life insurance. Now, of course, you have to be qualified health-wise to get it, so it's not like I can just do it. - But after a certain age, it becomes prohibitively expensive, doesn't it? - And I have customers in their late 70s and early 80s who bought it, and they qualified for it. And again, you could take just hypothetically, say 10, 15,000 and create a $200,000, $400,000 tax-free estate with a stroke of a pen. I mean, where else can you do that guaranteed in writing? So that could work, too. - How can nobody does that anymore? - Well, I mean, they do. I mean, they speak to me, they know about it, you know, but I just think the education part is not there for that particular area because so much of my industry is focused on wealth management side, right? It's all about collecting the assets and making a fee, which is fine, but it doesn't really address the legacy planning issue. - We're talking to Steve Anzoni from Fairway Financial. He's Cape Cod's retirement income specialist, and what's the number people can reach you at? - Well, the direct line is 508-398-3337. And our main office is in Hyannis, but we do have a satellite office in Plymouth as well 'cause that's my hometown, so we got a couple of locations. - Steve, where can people reach you on the internet? - It is fairwayfinancial.net. - So how can you help prepare for increases in taxes in the future? - Can any of us prepare for that? - It's very difficult because we don't know how much they're gonna go up. However, if you're in a situation to be able to do so, you can literally prepay the taxes today on your retirement money by doing what is called a Roth conversion. So you can literally convert a 401K or an IRA to a tax-free account. I mean, that just sounds nice. Doesn't it rollin' off your tongue? If they do decide to change the laws, which I think they're gonna do, you know, at some point, the tendency in the past is to grandfather in what people have already done. So that's the good news is there is some testing there, there's some history there of grandfathering. So right now, with the tax brackets being at an all-time low from federal standpoint, it might be a good time to consider prepaying these taxes now. We all know taxes are gonna go up in the future. There's not much we can do about it. So what we can do is prepare for it. So you're gonna have a little pain first to do it. And so the pain is you've gotta claim the money that you're converting. If you're still working full-time and you're making a lot of money, it might not make sense to do that Roth conversion right away, but maybe the year you retire and your income drops, that'd be a great year to consider doing some conversions. That's called a backdoor Roth IRA. And you can do that. And if your income lowers, you can pay these taxes at 12, 15, 20%, at one time, howie. And then everything you put in, including the interest, the money you started with, all grows, tax-free. Not deferred, free. There's no one you're gonna pay in the future for this. But there is a price you pay upfront. You've gotta pay the taxes to do it upfront. - So theoretically then, if the government keeps its word, if you paid the taxes and made it into a Roth IRA, you'd be set, but without having to pay any more tax. - You would be. - Whenever you made withdrawals. - A lot of my 401K is set up as a Roth. I've done it. So I'm biting the bullet a little bit. So I'm paying the taxes now on that money, as I'm putting it in. And then some years, I'm switching over to a regular 401K where I'm just gonna get the deduction. So it really depends on the year. If I find I need more deductions, I'll do the pre-tax one. - Now, if you go into Fairway Financial in Hianas or the office in Plymouth, do you recommend which mutual funds people get into or? - I don't recommend investments. And that's why I'm known as Cape Cod's retirement income specialist. I work with other people, other professionals who do the money management side. I do the income planning side, the legacy planning side. That's what I focus on. - So you wouldn't tell me to go into an index fund or an emerging markets fund. That's not your job. - That's not like cup of tea. Like you said, there's millions of other people out there who do that. - Yeah. There's not millions of other people out there who do what I do. - Tell me about annuities. Like everybody else, I get mixed reports on annuities. - Yeah, and I have for years. And by the way, you get mixed reports on everything out there. I mean, Bitcoin, mixed reports, right? I mean, yeah, annuities have been around, I mean, as long as a Roman Empire, literally. They've been around that long. They've stood the test of time. And the knock on annuities is that people who buy them aren't fully aware of how they work. And the folks who offer them out there, they're not forthcoming with anything. - Right, and how much money you leave on the table if you got hit by a bus today? That kind of thing. - Well, it could be. Like the old school ones, like if you took an income and died, there might not be anything left for your state. But today's products work a little bit differently where you have more control. Well, you can actually have a joint annuity. So you and your spouse have the same check for life. Unlike a Social Security check, that gets cut in half. They're newer, they're more modern, they're paying. I mean, some of the payout rates that I've seen are over 8% today. I mean, that's a pretty good number guaranteed for life. I had a gentleman who is a super, super smart guy. He's into options and puts and all that stuff. And he called me and says, Steve, I need a guaranteed income, a newie. I do this other stuff and I'm okay with it, but I'm retiring now. He gave me a half a million dollars. We got him, I think it was like 8.63% on that 500,000 for a lifetime. He was like, Steve, that's fantastic. That's what I want. So what does that amount to, for half a million dollars? 48 was at $44,683, something like that. A year. Yeah. Forever. As long as he lives. And he was thrilled with that. And if he dies too early, there's still a death benefit on that. So they work, you have to just know what you're purchasing. Just like a 401k, you got to know what investments you have, know what the fees are, know what the risks are. Just like annuity. It's the same thing. I feel that they're a great tool as a part of your retirement plan. Not all of it. How much money do you need to walk into fairway financial to make it work? They're not wasting your time. I know. I've never been an exact money guy, but I mean, you know, realistically these days, you probably need at least $250,000 just so you can have other assets that I can leave in the bank that, you know, for liquidity purposes, emergency money purposes, that's probably a realistic number. So $250,000, that would not just be cash. That would be like money that you had like in 401k or raise. Yeah, mostly. Yeah. Made up of cash and 401ks and IRAs. That would probably be the minimum amount, you know, just to be realistic so I can help people invest the right way because, you know, if you give 25 or 50, it's probably not going to put a dent in the cash flow situation. Real estate. It seems very volatile. It is, but, you know, again, long term, if you, you know, the old adage, if you buy it right and you hold it right and you know what you're doing, you can make good rental income. I've done pretty well with some properties that we had down at Myrtle and I sold them a couple of years ago and my wife and I got the new office and we actually bought a chile up in New Hampshire that we're excited to possibly rent, but we're just not sure yet because we like it. But rental income can be fantastic. I had a lot of clients who've got properties and again, you buy a rental property on the cape, you got to drop at least 600, right? And the mortgage rates are seven and a half, whatever. So you're carrying costs are up there around 3,500, 4,000 a month already. Then you got to try to get some cash flow to offset that. So it's a real tough road and if you don't know what you're doing, absolutely, you can get hurt. Probably the better way to go is to look at the traditional Leforro one case and annuities to create cash flow because the annuities will be there guaranteed without having to be a landlord. Then again, where can people reach you if they want to get your services and advice? The best direct number is 508-398-3337. That's the direct line down to the main office. Your book is available, tee up your retirement, if people can just call up and get that book and then they can check you out. You know, talk to one of the staff and say, "Hey, I listened to Steve on Howie's Show and I want to get a copy of his book. We'll be happy to send that out to you and save whatever they charge on on Amazon. But I love to give it out to people who code my show or come to my seminars, so happy to do it. And what is your website? It is fairwayfinancial.net. And if they want to listen to your radio show. Oh, yeah, on 95.1, the sister station here down the Cape. I'm on at 6 a.m., Saturday mornings, and they are kind enough to do a replay at 5 p.m., Saturday night right now. So that's going on too. And you have a studio? I do. I have a studio. We take the show, but people love to come in and see the studio and it's a lot of fun. I've got a photo of us up there, Howie, and I've got to tell you, I have people come in and I've interviewed athletes and actors and the one they focus on the most is you. I'm telling you, right? Am I right? They come in the office, they see all the people who go, "That's Howie." And I said, "Yep, that's Howie." Well, that's great. And Steve, the next 10 people who come into your office after they hear the podcast, you can give them a free autographed copy of my book, Paper Boy. I'll give you some as you leave here today. Thank you. In addition to your own book, I tee up your retirement, you can get Paper Boy, which is written by me to stave off retirement for a few more months, if not years. All right, Steve Anzoni from Fairway Financial Cape Cod's retirement income specialist. Thank you so much for being with us here today on Meet the Experts. Thank you, Howie. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining us on this episode of Meet the Experts with Howie Car. We'll be back soon, with even more interesting guests, you're sure to learn a great deal from. Steve Anzoni is a licensed insurance provider by the Division of Insurance and is not registered as an investment advisor in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]