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Welcome back to another episode of the IRA Cafe podcast! Join Jasmine Trocchia, head of marketing at American IRA, as she hosts an engaging conversation with our guest, Kalan McEuen, managing partner of McEuen Insurance and Legacy Planning. In this episode, Jasmine and Kalan deep dive into financial legacy planning, maximizing retirement benefits, and the unique services McEuen Insurance offers to their clients. Kalan shares how he helps clients recapture lost wealth, maximize their financial potential, and leave a meaningful legacy. From discussing tax mitigation strategies to federal student loan forgiveness programs, Kalan sheds light on unique ways to manage cash flow and enhance the quality of life for his clients. Key takeaways:

1. Financial Legacy and Client Focus: Kalan McEuen emphasizes the importance of financial legacy and quality of life for clients. They work with clients who are passionate about recapturing wealth potential lost to taxes, fees, and corporate control. The focus is on helping clients live their best life now and leave a financial legacy for their families.
2. Veteran Community Engagement: Kalan is a retired Navy veteran who actively stays connected with the veteran community. He is involved in the Veteran Business Collective, helping veterans start businesses and become entrepreneurs. This community connection is central to his personal mission and professional work.
3. Cash Flow Management: Kalan's firm focuses on improving cash flow and income management for clients. They believe in enhancing quality of life by ensuring clients have better control over their finances, rather than solely focusing on accumulating wealth through investments. This includes strategies for saving 10 to 30% of monthly income.
4. Student Loan Forgiveness Partnership: The firm partners with organizations to assist clients in navigating federal student loan forgiveness programs. This is particularly valuable given the increasing costs of higher education and the financial burden of student loans. The service aims to mitigate debt and plan for associated tax impacts.
5. Educational Background and Career Path: Kalan’s career path includes a strong educational background in economics and financial services management. His military experience and time spent in the corporate insurance sector have informed his current focus on financial advising and legacy planning, blending his analytical skills with a personal mission to help clients maximize their financial scenarios.

Whether you're looking for insights on self-directed IRAs or curious about how to balance professional and personal life with a large family, this episode covers it all. Tune in to learn how you can achieve more financial freedom and create lasting memories with your loved ones! [embed]https://youtu.be/JavASOXkymY[/embed]

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Welcome back to another episode of the IRA Cafe podcast. My name is Jasmine Trocchia, and I'm the head of the marketing department at American IRA. And, today's guest is super fun to talk to. I'm really excited to have a whole conversation with Caelin McEuen from McEuen Insurance. Hi, Caelin. Welcome to the podcast.

Hey, Jasmine. Thanks for having me.

Yeah. It's so nice to have you. So could you introduce yourself? Tell us who you are and, what you do.

Yeah. Sure. My name is Kalan McEuen. I'm the managing partner of McEuen Insurance and Legacy Planning. We are a firm that helps our clients, we like to say consistently bring more money into their lives, by helping them keep more of what they have earned and earn more on what they keep. And we do that because, we're mainly focusing on helping our clients recapture a lot of the dollars that they lose in taxes or fees or other costs that, most folks are aware of but don't necessarily understand how well they can actually do at recapturing that.

So what kind of client would be seeking out your services? I'm trying to understand, like, to me, that doesn't seem like a service I need. But who are the kind of people who need your services?

And and to be sure, that's a good point. Not we're not a great, solution for everyone. Right? It has to be an appropriate kind of matching between us and and the clients. So we work best with clients who understand that there aren't any do overs in life. So for example, if you transfer away control over your finances to corporate America, Wall Street, or the government, you'll be transferring away 70 to 90% of your wealth potential. And most of the clients that we work best with, that really upsets them, and they want to be able to do something about that. In fact, they demand to do something about that, and that's where we come in. We help our clients implement strategies that will help them recoup those dollars back into their lives so that they can live their best life now.

And with respect to talking about, a legacy, helping them enjoy their time that they have remaining, increase the quality of their time remaining. And, usually, that equates to creating memories with their family and other people that they care about and going off and doing those activities that usually cost a little bit of money to do so. And then on the on the back end of that, also planning to have a financial legacy that they're leaving behind for them as well.

Oh, yeah. That's definitely important. I think that last that last part, that resonates a lot, I would think, with our clients at American IRA. But aside from business, tell me about you personally. You're a veteran.

I am. Yeah. Twenty year, retired, navy veteran.

Thank you for your service.

Thank you. Yeah. And so I've lived across the world. I've deployed across the world, did a lot of things in in the naval services. And after I retired in 02/2017, a big element of my retired life has been staying connected with the veteran community no matter where I was. So, I'm connected with, and a member of a nonprofit called the Veteran Business Collective. We have multiple chapters, one here in Jacksonville, North Carolina where I live. The originating chapter is in Wilmington, North Carolina, not far from where I live.

There's a chapter in, the Tri Cities area of, Tennessee and another chapter that opened last year, our most recent chapter in Pensacola, Florida. And in in that way, I help other veterans, like, get into business, start as entrepreneurs, create, you know, the ability to to have funds that they can tap to expand their business, etcetera. And I have several clients that are American IRA customers.

My, my dad was in the navy for twenty years. So, my whole childhood, he was he was in the navy. So I know when he retired, he retired on an officer's, salary and retirement. And so I can only imagine, you know, the the pool of money that you would have for, like, military retirement. Do you is that sort of the the the advice that you give or the sort of, like, clientele that you have? Are you able to say somebody who's getting, like, a military retirement, you know, hey, that's kinda great and what you should do with it, or is it kinda too late once you've retired?

Well, so what we help folks with is maximizing their benefits and their money supply, specifically. Now what they do with that in terms of specific investments in in the context of where we sit in in The United States and in our investment landscape, you have to have certain licenses to give specific advice on what to do and how to invest, especially with respect to Wall Street. So I don't hold those licenses, but I am certified to help folks improve and increase their cash flow. And so we'll talk about if you're a client of mine and you have an excess over your target, you know, savings balance, would it be appropriate to to put some of that money in excess into your retirement fund? That's a general kind of, guidance and talk about that. If you have a self directed account, for example, an American IRA, you know, what are you planning on doing with that? Are there things that you would want to invest in? And I do have a network of people, that have both, the ability to help accredited investors and non accredited investors, to take advantage of opportunities that are out there. If that's something that they're interested in, I help our clients in that way. That's not necessarily giving them specific investment advice, though. So we Oh, gotcha.

We have a pretty fixed lane in terms of improving cash flow, which in our view is probably the more important thing than accumulating a massive amount of money when you're in your retirement years. So, again, it loops back to what our mission is, and that is enhancing the quality of time remaining and that living legacy as well as the financial legacy that people want to live or or leave behind.

Love that. Love that. We were also talking before the call. You mentioned you have a program that deals with federal student loans. Do you wanna talk about that?

Yeah. We partner with several different organizations out there in our quest to to bring more of our clients' money back into their lives. And one of the ways that people are are losing a lot of money is in the federal student loan debt that they take on. Not to get political or to talk about the the negatives of the higher education environment here in The United States, but costs have gone up is a fact over the last decade or so or more for that matter. And the amount of debt that students are taking on for, you know, different degree programs is considerably higher than what I went through. And so that debt burden when you are a new entrant into the work arena, can be difficult and more difficult for some than others depending on where you're at and and where you live. So having the ability to go through a federal program to have that loan debt forgiven is a huge value for a lot of our clients. So we partner with the only organization that is accredited by the Department of Education in all 50 states to help clients with the process of that.

And it is a little bit of a process to to go through. Just high level here, when it comes to federal student loan forgiveness, you have to file every year to remain, current, with the Department of Education. That is a burden that not everyone is well equipped to handle, so it is helpful to have a company, to do that for you. Now they'll ask for, a fee in exchange for that service, but compared to what you are paying in terms of your federal federal student loan payments and the interest on top of that, it is it is nominal in comparison. One one key thing that folks need to realize, these are all the company that we partner with leverages only the Department of Education approved forgiveness programs. But among those programs, Department of Education, but you won't be on the good with the Internal Revenue Service. They'll see that loan forgiveness as, income for that tax year. And so there will be a little bit of financial planning that is necessary, to to be, ready for that tax burden at that final year.

And so that's where we can come in into play and and assist our clients with having, a financial plan that will give them an appropriate amount of money to cover that tax burden.

Awesome. And, couple places online where folks can find you, some kind of segueing into, you have a blog, Caitlin a Caitlin and blog and Facebook. Is that right?

That's right. Yeah. So I'll I'll have a lot of articles in there, a few videos, some strategies that we go over for clients with respect to those themes that we've talked about so far. So how do you bring more money back into your life, saving on taxes? What's the appropriate use of insurance, as part of these strategies? And, you know, there'll be ways for you to, connect with me if you want to explore any of those topics further.

Wonderful. And you're also on LinkedIn. Yes?

Yep. I've had a profile there for quite a while. So you'll see the check mark next to me and as well as some of the highlights of our posts that we have on our Facebook blog. Most of them will also be replicated on my LinkedIn profile. Mhmm.

I love those questions. Those are like, well, yeah, I wanna leave a legacy for my family. And, you know, and I love how your mindset isn't just financial, but just, like, the quality of life for people, and keeping that as part of your mission. I think that that's really endearing and and something a lot of companies don't necessarily keep in the forefront. And then also, you're launching a new, webinar series coming up next their first one or next one is next week. You wanna talk about that a little bit?

Yeah. So monthly is the intention here for 2025. We'll be talking going in a little bit deeper dive into the topics that are are near and dear to most of our clients. And so next week, I'll be talking about tax mitigation. Well, the the theme is keeping more of what's yours, as I've mentioned already here. So we'll be talking about tax mitigation and some of the strategies that you can employ there. You're a business owner or you're a high income earning household, not just an individual, but maybe you and your spouse combined are earning enough. It might behoove you to explore tax mitigation strategies on top of what your CPA might be able to do for you, with respect to reducing your taxes.

In addition to that, we'll talk about federal student loan forgiveness, maybe some of the ins and outs of their case study, to exemplify that. And then our bread and butter service that we do for our clients, and that's the cash, flow management, or income under management that we do for folks and how through a very simple strategy that you can employ immediately for very little cost, next to nothing. You can our our data shows that over a twelve to eighteen month period, we can get you to the point where you're saving 10 to 30% of your monthly income. So that's 600% or so more than the national average. And that alone can help enable a lot of other decisions like how do I have money, to be able to put towards a self directed IRA, an American IRA as an example. So if you have the cash flow to maximize your contributions on a yearly basis and we can help you find that within your internal financial ecosystem, then that could be a huge value, for folks, obviously, over the long run.

Yeah. I was actually just having that conversation this weekend with my boyfriend, and I was calculating if I can contribute x amount per year, what is that per paycheck? And then, like, how do you make that happen? Like that, you know, I'm a little late to the game, but that's that's definitely a valuable service that I can see that, that clients would need so they can make the most of their retirement savings. So thinking back again, so you you have a navy career. When you got out of the navy, is this what you saw yourself doing, or is this what you wanted to be when you're a little boy?

I don't think that it was any it was my, desire when I was a little boy. No. But it's kind of evolved from the track that I've taken in my adult career. I have an economics degree, for my bachelor's, and I have a a master's degree from Boston University in banking and financial services management. And the reason I got that while I was on active duty, by the way, I got that because of another experience I had when I was an undergraduate. I was a paid intern at a Solomon Smith Barney office where I went to school there in San Antonio. And I worked for one of the best, to this day, most impressive advisors I've ever met, Lisa Blomkvist. And so she had a a huge impact on me.

And, yeah, I did kinda want after my naval career, because eventually you do have to hang up the uniform, to go into financial advising. When I retired, I got picked up as a program manager at MetLife, and I worked with, the insurance side of the house and, in the IT realm in supporting the brokers that were that I now am that are going out there and talking to people and adding value in terms of insurance advising, in that realm of financial services. And so after a few years there at MetLife, I decided, you know, corporate world is nice, but I really miss that interaction with people and being able to see my immediate impact on them. And you mentioned earlier, like, you know, the the kind of reasons I got into this line of work and the impact that legacy planning specifically has for people. I spent a lot of time away from my family, when I was in the military. And, obviously, you don't have to to be a military retiree to spend time away. You could have done any any length of service, you know, less than that and still have an impact of of that time away. You can't those are the things you can't recoup.

Right? And so I mentioned before, the clients we work best with are those who understand there aren't any do overs. So how do you, you know, magnify the time that you have remaining? How can you, improve the impact that you're gonna have with your your family and other people, those those close relationships of of friends that you've developed over the years, before the good lord finally calls you home. So that's where we come in and we help, again, on the income side of the house and improving that, but also maximizing the benefits you have available to you. We have a planning process that we do use. There is a model that we do create for our clients, and we have two main objectives, of accomplishing a maximization, if you will, of benefits available to you while at the same time creating more, cash flow available to you as well. And we can show you, very simply some strategies there to help do both. So you get more bang for every buck that you put into your financial model versus maybe some of the traditional investing advice that you're getting out there from the walls Wall Street sponsored kind of advisors.

So what kind of advice would you give your younger self? So I think a lot of times, like, your 21 year old self, but your 21 year old self was in the Navy. So, yeah, and probably wouldn't listen to very much, I would imagine, if there's anything like my dad. But, what would what advice would you give your younger self?

So if I was if I was talking to a person that's just joining the military, whether they're an officer or enlisted, I would say there are a few things that you could do, some choices you could make right at the outset that give you more options at whatever time frame it's going to be when you leave. Now in that line of work, one of those ways that you leave is in a coffin, unfortunately. So, if you want to do more for those that you leave behind in that specific context, A permanent insurance policy can can certainly be helpful. There's government, guaranteed life insurance that you have available to you. Obviously, take advantage of that as well. But a permanent policy is is the key advice that I would put or give to myself, or anyone else joining the military or about to leave. The reasons for that are you get multiple benefits out of those policies that stay with you over the long course of your life, hopefully. But also the availability of that cash value that builds within those kinds of policies over the decades is gonna give you more options when you get to your late thirties or your early forties and you're contemplating the retirement from military service.

Now you have means to be able to do all kinds of different investment opportunities, start a business of your own, partner with others, go into real estate, etcetera. The same kinds of flexibility that you have, by the way, when you leverage a self directed IRA. You might be able to tap that same resource that I talked about to be able to help you ensure that you're maximizing the funding of the that kind of retirement account, even if after your military service, you're not earning enough to to make up the difference on on your own. So that would be the one piece of advice I have seen more than anything else in my years to date in advising and and assisting people in financial services. If you have a resource of your own, you don't have a the need to get an approval from a loan committee or a banker to be able to to tap the resources of borrow against the cash value in a permanent life insurance policy, for instance, then you have a lot of options available to you. The end of my military career as an operational planner in the navy who created military plans, and I always wanted options. The more options I had available to me meant that I had more flexibility when I met the uncertainties of combat situations, and just for everybody. Life is going to happen to us, and we don't know what twist or turn it'll take.

So, again, having maximum flexibility and options available to you is a smart play no matter what you do.

Yeah. Certainly. For sure. Wow. I love how you're answering the questions on my cheat sheet before I've even asked you. And I also love how you're tying it back around to self directed IRAs. Yep. As

I mentioned, we have clients that that leverage the self directed IRAs in American and I to in full disclosure, I have an account as well.

Yeah. For

my Roth self directed, account there at American.

Well, thank you. Thank you for being a client. Yeah. What do you do outside of your professional life? Do you have any hobbies or interests or things you do for fun?

Well, I have a mess of kids. So usually, it's gonna be involved Wait.

How many is a mess? A mess of kids.

In my case. Yeah.

Do do you say five?

I did. Yeah. We're all we're all humans, so there's a level of mess in there. There a whole hands worth of kids. Yes. My wife and I are very busy running around from one activity to another. I've got two that are out of high school, and then I've got two in middle school and early high school. And, I've remarried, so I I have a new addition.

We have a four year old as well. So they are mine and ours. To boys and girls. Yep. Yeah. Exactly. So Oh,

that's fine.

This is pretty busy.

I bet. Yeah.

I like to hike if if you want, like, hobbies there. I I've gone out to to Asheville. I've actually visited American IRA before I started talking to clients or or moved my own money there. So I've I've been to your location. I've been in the mountains around there. My wife's from Central Pennsylvania. We go up there, and I'll do hiking. And and that's something now that I've been consistent enough about that that the kids are actually wanting to do more of with me.

So that's helpful too.

Oh, fun. Well, if you're ever back in Asheville hiking or whatever, please stop by and say hi.

We'll certainly do that.

Yeah. And our our office is is an open book. I mean, people can just walk in. Clients can walk in eight to five Monday. Well, nine to five, Monday through Friday. So but that's cool.

That's really neat. I would encourage anyone listening. If they would like to go talk to their their account manager or whatever, call ahead and and tell them let them know that you're on your way. But the staff there has has been nothing but just awesome to to work with and and and super nice when you show up. If you're a coffee drinker, they got they got plenty on hand to help you with and etcetera. So it was great experiences.

We sure do. So awesome. Well, I believe I touched on all of the things we wanted to talk about. Did you wanna mention anything else to the audience or something that I forgot to ask you about that maybe you want people to know about you?

Well, meaning other than what you see is is what you get, I'm pretty straightforward. Being a military retiree, I do like to explain things. So if there's a fault to me, it might be that I might take a little bit longer to to get all of the info out. But it's from a care perspective. I want to make sure that people are understanding whatever issue may be at hand before they make a decision if they're a client of mine. And so the yeah. You get what you you see, with that, but it's straightforward and direct. And I think a lot of clients appreciate that.

Not beating around the bush, but giving them the information that they need to be able to make the decisions necessary with respect to their financial lives. And because it's financial, all the other ancillary impacts that that has for their family and, other relationships out there.

And how can, anyone who's interested in speaking to you further, how can they contact you?

Sure. The easiest way is to either email or text me. If they and you can call, of course, usually. I'm a pretty full schedule, so I may not be able to answer the phone directly. But if you leave a message, I I get back to clients or or inquiries within twenty four hours. But you can email me at [email protected], or you can call or text me at, (910) 722-9295. That's my office line.

Fantastic. And that information is also on your website?

It is. It's on my website. It's on my blog. It's on the, on my LinkedIn profile as well.

Fantastic. Let let's talk. Perfect. Well, thank you, Caitlin. I really it's been such a pleasure speaking with you. Would you would you like to come back for another episode in the future? That would be that would be super fun.

Yeah. That'd be great. I do have a couple other initiatives that I'm not, I'm not solid on yet. I haven't finalized, but they'll be pretty big, here in the North Carolina area. Be doing some events. And so I would love to have an opportunity to come back and kinda describe what those are and give an opportunity for folks to to come and check this

out. Absolutely. We would love to have you. You're very interesting to speak with. So thank you so much, Kaylin. We'll, we'll have you on again. And if you have any questions as a listener, you can reach Caitlin, like you said, and his website and email and text. And, we'll talk to you again soon.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks, Jasmine. Appreciate it. You guys have a great one.

Now it's time for the IRA cafe q and a. This is where I answer a question from the listeners. And this question was sent into [email protected] from Ronnie. Thanks, Ronnie. Thanks for your question. And Ronnie asks, let me check my notes. What are some assets that I cannot hold within my self directed IRA? This is a really great question. We get this question a lot.

This has to do with prohibited transactions and, assets that you are not allowed to hold within your IRA due to IRS regulations. So the IRS says that IRAs cannot hold life insurance, jewelry and gems, collectibles, alcohol alcoholic beverages such as like wine barrels or vintage wine, gold coins and bullion that are of insufficient purity, so you can't do collector's coins and that kind of thing within an IRA, Or shares of s corporations. And I know that's probably one that a lot of people don't know that you can't hold shares of s corporations in your IRA. Now those IRS regulations change frequently, so check the IRS website for the latest regulations. But in general, if you think of your self directed IRA, it can't hold assets such as collectibles. It can also can't hold art. That's not even in this list that I have. And then there's more information on our website at americanira.com about prohibited transactions in which you cannot hold within your self directed IRA.

Thanks, Ronnie. Thanks for your question. And if you'd like to submit a question to the IRA Cafe q and a, you can email me at [email protected].

American IRA LLC, a North Carolina LLC, acts as a third party administrator for New Vision Trust Company, a state chartered South Dakota trust company. As a neutral self directed IRA administrator, American IRA does not recommend or endorse any investments, individuals, or entities, including financial representatives, promoters, or companies. American IRA and the IRA cafe are not responsible for other statements, representations, or agreements, nor do we evaluate the quality or profitability of any investment. American IRA does not endorse guests on the IRA cafe podcast. Guest opinions are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of American IRA, its subsidiaries, associates, or custodian. Participation in the podcast is voluntary, and no compensation is provided. American IRA is not a fiduciary and cannot offer financial advice. Please consult your CPA or another professional before making financial decisions.