Nikki Foley: Ellie, so good to be back with you on another edition here of Paladin Financial Talk. I just got to spend a few days with you in Vegas and so I want to recap what we were doing and why we were there. We attended the Elite Advisor Forum which is put on by one of our partners called Gradient Investments and they are primarily our portfolio managers. They put our portfolios together and they put on a fantastic event every year and I didn’t get to spend the whole time there. I came in kind of like the last half of the meeting, but even during the time that I was there, it is fantastic. I love to hear from our portfolio managers and some of the guests that they bring in because they do such a nice job of positioning what they think is happening, what we should expect, what’s going on in the world around us, and how that might impact the markets and what we’re seeing, and then being able to take that back and apply it.

And so again, the Gradient Investments team did a really nice panel where they had three of their portfolio managers going back and forth and then later, they ended the day with some of their outside partners. So the team at Tema and Running Oaks Capital where they did the same thing but just brought yet another different perspective on things. And so I don’t know if you had any thoughts on what you got from the first half of the event or your perspective on being able to attend something like this, but I love it and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have that exposure.

Ellie Robison: Yeah, Nikki, I feel like you missed about two-thirds of this conference and it’s one of my favorite conferences of everything that we attend throughout the year because it’s so rich in content. It’s fantastic to hear from so many different professionals in the industry and they all have slightly different opinions and they all niche in different expertise. So sometimes there’s conflicting opinions, but it is so good to hear it from, everyone across the board. One thing that I really noticed this year in particular is there’s just more and more conversation about alternative investments. It keeps coming up. And so there is a notice of the bond market not being so great right now. And so there’s a lot of conversation of like, okay, what are our alternatives that we can shift our clients into? And it’s just a very valuable business conference for us to sit in on.

One of my favorites, Brian Belski, he was on that first night that you missed, Nikki, and I know that he’s a reoccurring person who comes into this event every single year. He’s more of a TV personality. Do you remember him?

Nikki Foley: Yeah. I don’t know if you knew this. We took our picture with him down here. He was visiting and

Ellie Robison: Oh, you and Matt did.

Nikki Foley: I think it was Matt, Jeff, and I if I remember right. And so yeah, he has such a big personality but great information and good…

Ellie Robison: Absolutely to the point. And so he has a small and midcap ETF portfolio that he’s partnered with Gradient Investments on which is available to our clients. So, we were hearing a little bit more about that and just knowing as like financial planners, we don’t know that all of the ins and outs of every single asset class out there. So, it is very valuable to hear it from the people who are working in it day in and day out.

Nikki Foley: Yeah, I felt like the bit that I was there, I was scribbling down notes on everything that was being said because I have to take it back and process and think about how that might apply to different scenarios. But beyond grateful for the opportunity and I miss some of the big like keynotes that are the motivational speakers as well and so I heard nothing but great things about who was there from that perspective. Now it was two members is that right of the Olympic hockey team from 1980…

Ellie Robison: Olympic hockey team from 1980.I have to look up their names. Nikki wasn’t born yet.

Nikki Foley: That’s okay, Ellie. Will not put you on the spot, but I heard fantastic things from that perspective.

Ellie Robison: Mike Eruzione.

Nikki Foley: It’s okay. This is not our bucket.

Ellie Robison: Yeah. And I was thinking of Zach the whole time actually. So, there was a sports psychologist who talked earlier in the day and then the two Olympic gold medalists that talked later on in the day and hearing sports professionals talk about like their experience and what they have done. Yeah. And then tying it to business, like there is a lot of correlation and it’s so fun to hear it from other people.

Nikki Foley: You may have heard me say this that with my HR hat on and the many people that I’ve hired through the years in my previous life, if there was an athlete or if there was a coach, I would usually try to interview them because I knew the experiences that they had and the teamwork that they brought to the table and their mentality and whether it worked out or didn’t. That I usually at least try to have a phone conversation with them because they bring something that you can take into the business world I feel like.

Ellie Robison: Absolutely.

Nikki Foley: Well, I feel like we were absolutely spoiled from the event and very grateful for Gradient Investments and the event that they put on. So, hearing from Goldman Sachs and all the other big names out there, just really blessed that we had that opportunity. So, and I do have to put in we after the whole event was over, we went to the Sphere and we saw Metallica. That is a Jeff Foley special that one of his favorite bands is Metallica and so that was a little treat for him to be able to do that and then to do it in the Sphere was…

Ellie Robison: I have to call you out Nikki at one point. So, Jeff, Jack and I are all standing up just head pounding and I look over and Nikki’s sitting there yawning. I’m like, “Oh, Nikki.”

Nikki Foley: Well, I was coming in from another time zone, and I had been up since about 5:00 a.m. That morning and so but I was all for it. It was fantastic.

Ellie Robison: Good spirits. You were fun.

Nikki Foley: What a good experience. If you have not done the Sphere yet in Vegas, I would say it marries that concert experience with this incredible animation and video experience. And I just have never been a part of something like that. And so it was really cool.

So, well, Ellie, we should probably kick off what we’re actually here to talk about, and that is for us to close out our six-part series on Social Security, where we have been breaking down all the pieces, and we have gone through a lot up to this point. You and Jack kicked us off with just a nice really broad overview of Social Security and then we went deep over the next several episodes on the retirement benefits for workers. We went into survivor and dependent benefits.

We got into disability benefits and then the last one we gave it to Jack for his detailed information on Social Security taxation and so I think that we have covered a lot but where we ended with Jack was he took it into some claiming strategies and he just touched on one example before we wrapped up and it was great to think about of everything that we’ve heard up to this point now let’s put this into action and we really are talking about the retirement side of things again and so That is what you’re going to specialize in today, Ellie, is talking about some of these retirement claiming strategies. Feeling good?

Ellie Robison: I’m feeling so good. I have a couple examples ready. Let’s do this.

Nikki Foley: All right. I love that. Well, we try to start with a question, and we’ve introduced each of you so many times up to this point, but you and Jack already answered the question I had been going through, so I had to come up with a new one for you. And so, the original question that I had asked everybody was, “Well, when is that right time to file for Social Security?” And guess what? Everybody answered, “well it depends,” and I didn’t want to recap and go over that. So my quick fire question for you today is what is one Social Security rule that you think most people misunderstand and how would you explain it in very simple terms?

Ellie Robison: Without asking you for clarification on the word rule I wasn’t quite sure. Okay. My first thought was like how claiming decisions interact with each other I think is the absolute biggest thing I think it’s easy for people just be in their lane and just think about themselves and it’s like nope I’m going to retire I’m going to file for Social Security without thinking about the impact of a spouse or family or whatever it might look like. So the big difference between spousal and survivor benefit that is something I do want to touch on here today. It’s nuanced and it demonstrates why a retirement strategy should account for both spouses financial futures together.

Nikki Foley: Good. I do feel like one of the things that we come back to continuously as advisers is I could have probably told everybody what each adviser was going to say and I knew it was going to be it depends when on my quick fire question of when. But I also know one of the things that we come back to over and over again is how things interact and how that is such a key piece of having a plan because if you look at whether it’s the topic of Social Security or anything else in a financial plan, none of it works in a silo and that is what I just heard you say again is this doesn’t work independent. So looking around, eyes up and understanding of how this all interacts. And I know that this is going to be a part of few of your answers today is showing that in real life and how that applies to Social Security. Well, with that, let’s kick off and get going here if that sounds good.

So Social Security is an inflation-adjusted lifetime income source that really can help manage some key financial risk. And specifically, I want to point out because sometimes these words just jumble together. And so when I say inflation-adjusted lifetime income source, that really is a protection or a risk that people are faced with in retirement is inflation, right? And we are experiencing that probably more than ever. I keep coming back to gum. I want some gum. And it is like $7 for one of those big things of it. And I’m like, kids, we are not buying gum right now. We do not need our gum. But it I did see somewhere and I don’t know why this came up because I’m experiencing gum 8.1% increase on gum over the last year. I just read that. Why? A great question. I have no idea. Maybe that EAF we should have specifically asked. Tell me about that elite adviser. What’s going on with that? No idea.

But that is what we’re going to talk about is the fact that Social Security has an inflation-adjusted component to it is protecting us against one of these risks that we find in retirement. Longevity risk, market risk. It’s a really key tool to use for income. And so I don’t want to spend too much time hounding on that. So Ellie, I’m going to turn it to you to say just help us understand how somebody’s Social Security claiming decision helps protects against these risks and give us an example so we can bring this to life.

Ellie Robison: Okay. You hit the nail on the head with like stressing that everything compounds together. It’s not just individual risks that we’re focused on. And so that’s why we want to be thoughtful on our claiming strategy. Just to recap and just point out the things that we have talked about along the last five weeks of Social Security. We know that Social Security it’s providing a lifetime income stream with the cost of living adjustments. So Social Security administration has been pretty generous in the past with keeping up with inflation. And I remember seeing my clients get that like 9% increase around COVID 2020 2021. So they’re pretty generous about that. Delaying filing for benefits generally increases that lifetime income stream. Although the trade-off is just giving up checks earlier in life. We know this a larger dependable income floor may mean less pressure to withdraw from investments later on in life.

Particularly if someone lives longer than expected or experiences disappointing market returns. So, I’ll touch on this a little bit in my example. And then I also wanted to point out that listening to advice on the internet isn’t always appropriate. Just because like they that people who are talking on the internet don’t know about your health status. They don’t know about the age gaps between you and your spouse or your kids. Cash flow needs, taxes, penalties. Like there’s so many other little things. So, absolutely absorb as much as possible and learn on your own, but it really needs to be calculated together with a professional.

Nikki Foley: Yeah, personalized is the key piece of all of this.

Ellie Robison: So, in one of my examples, I was looking at my client list earlier today, and I feel like I do have a lot of like widowed clients, a lot of divorced clients, widowed or never married that are pre-retirees, retirees. And so I was looking at one of the plans of my clients. She is widowed. She’s in her early 60s. Her late husband had passed away over 5 years ago now. She’s still working. She’s the sweetest woman. I love her. Her house is paid off. She has minimal spending, but she does love to travel. And so she spends her money on travel with her adult children. And so that’s how she chooses to spend her money. And it’s not it’s not frequent. It’s a little bit more sporadic, but that’s where we know she likes to spend. Okay. Her late husband had a significantly higher PIA than her. Okay? And so that means her survivor benefit will be larger than her own individual benefit even though she’s been working in the last few years and will continue to work.

So reminder, survivor benefits do not roll up past the survivor’s full retirement age. So her full retirement age is 67. So, we determined since her largest benefit will be at 67, we kind of work backwards from there. And so, we determined that she could retire now. If she wanted to, she could retire now. She’s choosing to work because she wants to. But that means if she wanted to retire now, she would file for her own benefit first. Just have that come in take out of her retirement assets to fill that income gap. And then once her survivor benefit applies at age 67, she’d have to switch to that, that benefit would be big enough to cover all of her expenses. And so in her plan, it shows that she shouldn’t have to necessarily pull out of her investments. But what it gives her the luxury to do is take out a random $20,000 next year if the market’s well and she wants to just go on a really big nice vacation.

And so it gives her that luxury of eliminating the portfolio withdrawal risk.

Nikki Foley: Yeah. There’s so many elements that came into that one is age was a big piece of it. The fact that her husband had passed, knowing when to turn something on, knowing some of her habits, knowing that at some point at 67 it was going to be her income, covered all the expenses. A lot of moving parts in all of that. And so, I think these are the puzzles that we get to solve that are a beautiful thing. Anything else that we should know about this situation or, anything else you want to share about that one as an example?

Ellie Robison: I think the beauty with this situation specifically is okay longevity is what I’m thinking of is if something happens to her at age 70 her investments are being left behind for her kids and if she continues to spend the way that she has been spending like her investment portfolio should still last till age 100 like there is really a trajectory that she’s going to have a successful outcome no matter where life takes her.

Nikki Foley: Well, I love seeing these come to life and apply to real scenarios. And so hopefully that gave multiple things for people to think through and think about. And if our listeners don’t understand a piece of this or want to see it personalized, that is something that we do regularly. And one of the things that we’re offering right now is our personalized Social Security Maximization Report. And we’ll cover that a couple times throughout the show. But if there is something that our listeners again heard or thought that they might relate to as part of that example, let us personalize one of those reports so you can see firsthand some of the variables that might go into it. So, how can timing of someone’s Social Security benefit create tax planning opportunities in retirement as well? I picked up on a few of them as you went through that example, but now I want you to help our clients understand some of those things.

So, stopping work and starting Social Security is really the key piece that I think we’re talking about today.

Ellie Robison: Yeah. So, if you were to retire and delay filing for Social Security benefits, think of that as a tax planning window. Yeah. And not necessarily just an income gap that needs to be filled because of your bills that need to be paid. So typically when retirees enter into retirement a lot of times they are going into a lower ordinary income bracket and so this window is a great opportunity to consider maybe some Roth conversions partial Roth conversions during these years. So converting between your traditional IRA and your Roth IRA, that is going to be taxable income to you now, but in the hopes of improving flexibility and tax diversification later. Conversions are not automatically beneficial for everyone. But this is absolutely one of the biggest things that we’re looking at for a certain type of clientele. Delaying Social Security does not automatically make future benefits tax-free.

So depending on your combined income, up to 85% of Social Security benefits may be included in the federal taxable income. And so the tax or the planning opportunity comes from coordinating income sources and timing. I think that’s a big misunderstanding is how Social Security is taxed. It’s taxed completely differently than anything else. So being mindful of that.

Nikki Foley: That’s why we gave it to Jack last week.

Ellie Robison: Yeah. Yeah. Because he knows the like formula. I don’t even bother because…

Nikki Foley: He’s impressive on his level of detail that he likes to get into. So that we gave him taxation.

Ellie Robison: So up to 85% never 100%. Understanding the impact of taxable income on Medicare premiums and other government imposed thresholds are also considerations. That’s up your alley, Nikki. So we’ll point to you when Medicare pops up. And then one of the last things that I can think of that I really push for is non-qualified or brokerage funds because a lot of times depending on your income needs this can be absolutely a window where we’re realizing 0% taxation on long-term capital gains and it’s like a no-brainer.

Nikki Foley: Yeah. Yeah. There’s so much that can happen in this period of time and I may say this later and so I’ll let you do your example and then I’m going to summarize some of the things I heard you say because I do think there’s a couple things I want to point out related to what you just said.

Ellie Robison: Okay. So let’s put some numbers to it. So suppose a person a single person retires at age 65 and they have $800,000 in a traditional IRA and they plan to claim or file for the Social Security benefits at 70. Okay. So if this client does not make any Roth conversions in this window of opportunity, his projected IRA balance at age 85, so in 20 years from now, should be about $1.24 million. Okay, that assumes a 5% rate of return. That assumes no needs for withdrawals for expenses whatsoever. But it does assume his RMDs are being taken out every single year starting at age 75 and getting fully spent. Okay. Okay. So that’s the base level. If their overall tax picture supports it, we might want to consider converting let’s start $40,000. So let’s say $40,000 is converted between your IRA to your Roth IRA for those five years. We’re going to assume not withholding any taxes from these conversions, but we’re going to assume everything else from the first scenario.

So, a 5% rate of return, no needs for withdrawing for expenses, and then RMDs get fully spent. The ending portfolio balance between both of those accounts would be projected to be $1.44 million.

Nikki Foley: Sounds like a win.

Ellie Robison: Actually, it’s a huge win. And so a lot of times when I’m showing clients their situation and their numbers and I say, “Hey, if we do this, you’re going to have higher ending portfolio balance longer term.” They are always mesmerized and they always ask how like how does this even work? The biggest factor is that traditional IRA is going to be smaller as RMDs begin. So RMDs at 75 for this client are going to be significantly bigger as if they weren’t to do Roth conversions as opposed to starting to chip away and putting it into that Roth IRA. It will continue to grow tax-free through age 85. And there’s no RMDs with Roths.

Nikki Foley: Absolutely. I love to hear these come to life because and I know that when you’re just verbally going through numbers sometimes it’s not as easy to follow. But the point I heard you say here is by chipping away at taxes it made a significant difference in what their overall portfolio looked like at the end there. Anything else to add on to that?

Ellie Robison: I want to emphasize that this is a very simplified example, right? Like there’s so many other complexities that can be layered into it like the taxation of Social Security if you continue to do Roth conversions between 70 and 75 non-qualified money like adding in any other goals of the client too if they’re trying to leave a legacy. This is very simple is what I want to highlight.

Nikki Foley: Absolutely. The point is they focused on it and they looked at the numbers and they had a plan. I mean, that’s probably the biggest story that you just told us here is they did their homework and then it was a decision where they knew the outcome was going to play in their favor. And so overall, again, this can get very complex. It is unique to each individual that we’re working with but income planning because we’re talking about how are you going to live and can you pay your bills. So, the income portion of this and tax planning, they go hand in hand. And I know that sometimes that’s obvious, sometimes it’s not as obvious as you go through some of these numbers. But that I think is a key point that we are trying to make on all of this. And income really, Ellie, can change numerous times for retirees or pre-retirees. And so you can have that point in time where you’re no longer earning income or a spouse is no longer earning income.

So those are two different planning opportunities if you’re in a marital status like that before you start taking Social Security. Is another point in time before you start taking required minimum distributions is yet another. And then talking about what you want this to look like for your heirs and what that transition and so there’s a lot of times where it is important that you have a plan in place and it might look different at different phases. And so zooming out and looking at all of this in a very long-term perspective, it’s so much more than looking at it one time a year or so much more than what do you want to do right now in this moment. And the key is I think like I said to go back and say you have a plan and you have options because you’ve put that time into the plan is really what I’ve heard you say up to this point and you’ve given your time to execute on a plan. Anything else on that?

Ellie Robison: When we are talking about taxes, I think sometimes people assume that because their taxes are being held by a tax preparer that it’s handled. They have a brilliant CPA that they’re working with on a year-to-year basis. But reminder, people who are usually filing are looking at the present/past. So they’re looking at past numbers while an adviser or a planner is really looking one year, 5 years, 10 years, 30 years down the road, especially if there is legacy goals and you want to leave a chunk of money behind for kids. Okay, let’s forward plan this. And so I want to emphasize that part because you need a team, right? You need the planner, you need the CPA, you need everyone to be working together.

Nikki Foley: Yeah. Often times you see your CPA or your tax preparer one time a year during tax season and how good do you feel about them if they keep telling you owe $30,000 you owe $7,000 like you’re like no thank you what is happening but if that’s part of a plan then it makes a whole lot more sense when it has been laid out and it’s a long-term plan and so it really is that coordination like you talked about there Ellie. Yeah. For married couples. You brought this up as we’ve kind of laced that in a little bit, but let’s talk about that in more detail. So, how should a spouse coordinate their Social Security claiming strategy and how are those decisions affecting the surviving spouse? And so, I know we’ve talked about it a little bit, but spend more time on this one.

Ellie Robison: Yeah. So, I had mentioned we don’t want to just be thinking about ourselves when we’re filing. We want to be thinking about a household together. When one spouse dies, the surviving spouse generally does not continue receiving both full checks, right? So they are assuming the higher earner’s record, whether it was the spouse who had the higher record, then surviving spouse is assuming that or if the surviving spouse had the higher record, they’ll keep that and that spouse’s lower record will just drop off. Yeah. So delaying the higher earners benefit can increase the benefit available to the survivor which is usually a huge play if there’s age gaps. Yeah. Yep. Incorporated. So I do have a general example real world example of some clients who are getting ready for retirement. So a household husband is 63 wife is 61. Both plan to retire at 65. That is their hard goal. Okay, we’re going to make it happen.

They have not shared any major health issues with me and they have not shared any, family history of longevity. Okay, so I have used average life expectancies for these clients. So average life expectancy for a 63-year-old male is almost age 82 and then an average life expectancy for a 61-year-old female is about 84 and a half years old. So that is the time horizon that we’re working with. The husband currently has a slightly higher primary insurance amount than the wife. Husbands is almost $3,000. Wife is around $2,100. What we determined as the optimized approach for the Social Security filing would be for them to actually file in the same year despite the age gap. So wife will be filing at age 68 where her benefit will be $2,550. Husband will be filing at age 70. So he had his benefits grow and so his is projected to be closer to $4,250.

Nikki Foley: Okay.

Ellie Robison: Significantly higher than $3,000. So because of the small age gap and their average life expectancies, the expectation for the wife is to file for survivor benefits at her age 80, which would at that point be projected to be about $5,400 a month for her on her survivor benefit. So the optimized approach that I just discussed, that totals to be about $1.4 million of lifetime household benefits that are paid out to this couple. If we stagger this filing this way and any other variation that we plug in of, filing at 65, filing at 68, whatever that is, if we use average life expectancies, every other lifetime benefit will be lesser than the optimized approach that I just talked about. Once we start playing around with longevity, that’s a different story, but we’re just using average life expectancies.

Nikki Foley: Sometimes I don’t even know that people realize that there is an optimized opportunity outside of the numbers that we know of like 62, 67, and 70 and I don’t know where that gets missed in communication but it isn’t always black and white and yes you can do it anything in between but there is a strategy behind a lot of this and this is again where we use pretty sophisticated technology to make sure that we are providing all the scenarios but then also looking at the different things like surviving spouse and spousal benefits and what makes most sense to take it and when. So, it’s each one of these can be complex and there is an optimized way to go about things. So, it sometimes makes sense like you described there for the lower earning spouse to claim earlier while the higher spouse delays, but it also might not. And so it’s all very personalized as we go about things. Anything else on that one, Ellie?

Ellie Robison: To stress like there is no universal, correct claiming age. So these are just scenarios that we’re giving. It’s going to be so dependent on your situation. Deciding when to claim Social Security is just a personalized decision. Yet that can be impacted by your marital status and should be done in conjunction with your spouse. So that is the reason why we are offering a personalized Social Security maximization report. It is a complimentary part of our services. This is something that you can request at paladinfinancialtalk.com where we will plug in your benefits and it will output what is the optimized approach for your household based off of average life expectancies or whatever age you tell us that you’re going to live to.

Nikki Foley: Exactly. And I think you’ve made great points as we’ve worked through each one of your examples of how many moving parts there are to this. And so getting it personalized and starting to understand what your options are for today, but also the long term, why not take that step to just start the process of understanding what those variables and what that optimized or that maximized number could look like. I feel like I could spend forever on this and this is just I mean it’s so complicated, but when you start to get into different claiming strategies and the what-ifs, I enjoy it so much because I think about all the moving parts and where it all fits together and being able to help somebody solve for that is a gift that we can offer and I love it. So, as we wrap up our conversation with this, just give our listeners some important factors that they can latch on to or consider before deciding when to claim Social Security.

Ellie Robison: I think we’ve touched on this throughout our conversation here. Health, family longevity, income needs, taxes, retirement savings, whether someone’s working in the household, your marital status, if you’re divorced. So, there’s so many things, but what I want to point out is if someone with limited savings or serious health issues, that can be a big red flag of like, let’s just file for Social Security sooner. Let’s not even bother with the optimized approach. We don’t know how long you’re going to be around for because of this diagnosis. You worked hard for this benefit. Let’s just take it. Yeah. Someone with sufficient assets, good health, and long retirement horizon may prefer to delay for that larger lifetime benefit. Sometimes I do think it’s a little bit of a mental game with our clients because they don’t want to delay even though they know that they can afford it and it’s in their best interest and they’re like, I don’t want to wait until 70.

Well, the numbers say it’s going to turn out really nice if you do this. So, that is a factor. Claiming before your full retirement age while still working can also trigger Social Security earnings test which should be evaluated separately. I definitely bring that up to clients who are trying to push to file before their full retirement age but also want to work. Otherwise, if it’s not even brought up, I usually don’t even bring up earnings test with clientele. I’m like, “Okay, that’s not even something I need to dive into because… it just gets complicated.”

Nikki Foley: “…it just gets complicated, Ellie.”

Ellie Robison: There’s too many ins and outs of it. So, as I wrap up here, my parting thoughts is Social Security claiming is not simply about choosing the age of when to file. It’s about, how that decision fits with your retirement income, your investments, your taxes, your health, and potentially your spouse’s financial future.

Nikki Foley: Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh, Ellie, I love this conversation. I like the detail that goes into it, and you did a nice job bringing it to life using some examples. So I hope that if our listeners heard something that they can relate to that they will call us and do that personalized confidential no obligation complimentary Social Security Maximization Report because it starts to bring things into clarity for the long term when they do that. So any other recommendations for resources that you would give to our listeners and we have covered a lot over six weeks we have referred people back to the Social Security website numerous times but is there anything else that you feel like you’ve seen or that you’ve latched on to on this conversation?

Ellie Robison: I do think there are some good blog posts out there by credible resources. So, a few would be AARP, LIMRA, CFP has good Social Security blog posts on it. You really want to be consuming content that is nonbiased and not trying to give you recommendations because of all the reasons that we’ve listed in this podcast. Really consume this with that educational student hat on and saying, “Okay, these are the facts. How can I incorporate this into my retirement plan?”

Nikki Foley: Yeah. Everybody knows the term AARP, but I think sometimes they forget to go out and see what all is out there. And that is a big piece of what they do. And they do have a dedicated section just to Social Security. We have mentioned CFP a number of times on this podcast, but that is their, this is what they do is they put educational content out there for us and as financial advisers, but also consumer friendly and easy to digest and we know that is going to be rich in detail if that is more of your lens. And then LIMRA is another industry association that does a great job. I’ll put all of those out there because I think, it’s up to you to start the conversation and start to understand and create a foundation and then our goal would be to hopefully start filling in the gaps with numbers and making sure that we can pull all those pieces and those things don’t live in a silo. Back to that concept of start to make some of those connections for the individuals that we’re working with.

Well, Ellie, you’ve done a fantastic job. I certainly want to give you an opportunity if there’s anything else you’d like to share. Otherwise, I’m going to go ahead and start wrapping up our conversation and ending our Social Security series that we’ve been doing here.

Ellie Robison: I’m excited for anyone to come through our doors that want to learn more about their own situation because like you also just said like there is a silo where you can think of Social Security and sometimes the optimized approach isn’t the overall best approach for the entire retirement plan either. So there’s two different ways on how you can see it and that’s why it takes some time working with a professional to like hone in on what’s the right course of action for you.

Nikki Foley: Absolutely. And Social Security can go deep. Well, our goal has been simple here is to help our listeners better understand Social Security and the systems that go along with it. Know how benefits are made available and the different benefits that are available and then just be overall more informed on the Social Security decisions as part of their overall financial plan. And so if anybody has listened to and spent the last six weeks with us or even just a single episode with us or minutes with us, we really want to encourage you to take advantage of that Social Security Maximization Report that we will personalize for you. Ellie mentioned it before, but go to paladinfinancialtalk.com. That’s our website and you can request this to be personalized. There’s also a sample report out there so you can get an idea of what we’re talking about.

And if you want us to personalize that report, just book a 15-minute phone call with us right from the website so we can gather the necessary information to create that report and make it personalized. Again, that is complimentary. We will offer that. That is a standing invitation that we will do that complimentary for you. And if you’re sitting there thinking, gosh, all of this feels like there’s more to have a conversation on, spend that 15 minutes with us. We’ll give you that Maximization Report complimentary but just let us have a no obligation conversation with you about the overall financial picture. Again, paladinfinancialtalk.com or just call us at 651-842-8406 and then continue to follow along on our social media platforms for more insights, resources, and upcoming content. So follow along on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more. So thanks for listening and we’ll see you on the next episode of Paladin Financial Talk.