Sometimes investment decisions (like saving for retirement) are black and white. No nuance or downsides.

But when it comes to annuities, there are shades of grey that The Retirement Equals Freedom Podcast is here to help you understand.

On this second of two parts, Host Josh Bretl shares FSR Wealth Strategies’ take on when, how and why certain annuities can make the perfect fit for clients whose portfolios need rounding out.

You’ll learn about various types of vehicles to consider, what makes them appealing and potential pitfalls to avoid.

Get to know the difference between immediate and deferred annuities and what distinguishes “protected income” buckets from “growth” buckets (from buckets of “fried chicken,” if – like Co-Host Dave Schmidt – you choose to go there!).

You’ll also find out why Fixed Index Annuities have a lot to offer as a steady stream of low-risk income.

If you’ve ever been intimidated (or put off) by the world of annuities, this is your invitation to take stock (on your own or with the help of a financial adviser) to determine whether they might make a good addition to your growing retirement nest egg.

If you missed Part I of this series, click this link to listen to Episode 40, “What’s Annuities Got to Do With It?”

If you haven’t already, please sign up for all the news you can use (+ lots of fun) at this link for the Retirement Equals Freedom podcast newsletter. You might also want to join the conversation at our private Facebook group, which you’ll find here.

Click here to explore the services that FSR Wealth Strategies offers and schedule a discovery call with one of the team’s CPAs. When it comes to living your best life, it’s never too early to get started!

The one that we use most in our office is something

called a fixed indexed annuity.

And they have the guarantees, the reason they call it fixed

is because it can't lose money.

But it can earn money, and it's usually tied to a stock index.

These fixed index annuities have been a godsend for a lot

of clients in their portfolios, but you have to think about

them a little differently.

It's not a mutual fund, it's not a stock market tool.

It is designed for your low risk, your bond alternative,

things along those lines.

But if you already know that the asset that you're spending,

like an annuity that can't lose money, then you have

this permission slip to let the rest of your money grow.

Sometimes investment decisions

are black and white.

No nuance, no downsides.

But when it comes to annuities, there are several shades

of gray that we are here to help you understand.

On the second of two parts, Josh shares his take on when,

how, and why certain annuities can make the perfect fit

for clients whose portfolios need a little rounding out.

You'll learn about various types of vehicles to consider,

what makes them appealing, and potential pitfalls to avoid.

Get to know the difference between deferred and

immediate annuities, and what distinguishes protected income

buckets from growth buckets from buckets of chicken?

Yeah, I went there.

You'll also find out why fixed index annuities have

a lot to offer as a steady stream of low risk income.

If you've ever been intimidated or put off by the world of

annuities, we encourage you to give this episode a listen.

It's your personal invitation to take stock to determine

whether or not annuities might make a good addition to your

growing retirement nest egg

Because hey, this is the Retirement Equals

Freedom Podcast.

Your host, Josh Bretl, is the owner of FSR, Wealth Strategies.

And for the last 20 plus years, Josh has been helping

fine folks like you gain the confidence to make retirement

the best part of your life.

Me?

Who am I?

Thanks for asking.

I'm Dave.

Josh's longtime friend, co-host of the show, and

huge fan of Stan's Donuts, chocolate Dipped Donuts.

Oh yeah.

Alright, enough of my voice.

Let me let you let me end my introduction so we

can get on with the show.

Josh, barrel aged cold brew from Stan's Donuts.

What do you think?

I think it's delicious.

And I also think I'm a little giddy today.

I've had too much coffee already.

It's really good, though.

A giddy Josh makes for a far more

entertaining podcast.

I hope so.

Some mornings we're up for these, some mornings we're like,

eh, I got to record a podcast.

But today I'm like, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go.

Yeah.

Landon's got his championship game tonight.

Ooh, is tonight the big championship game?

Yep, so we are stoked.

Trying to keep him nice and calm though, because he's pitching.

It's a big game.

How many innings are they allowed to pitch?

One, right now still?

And then we're pretty much gearing up for Colorado

on Tuesday, so it's an exciting time here.

Now, I catch a lot of grief in my house.

Because when we go for vacation, Missy says that I

don't really do anything, and I just show up and off we go.

But I think I'm an integral part.

All of the behind the scenes organization to make sure that

we have a taxi to get us to the airport, all the reservations.

Once we go, I got it all.

I know how to do everything.

And I will gladly help pack, but she doesn't trust my packing.

If I pack the kids, she'd re-check it 10 times.

I don't blame her.

No, I don't either.

I'd re-check my work too if it was packing the kids.

But I've taken the kids to Michigan randomly to go

see my parents, I have a whole different mindset.

Because she won't look at that, she won't check that.

And I just go.

And if we forget something, we forget something.

We'll figure it out, it's not a big deal.

Yeah.

You go to Walmart there in New Buffalo, Michigan,

and buy some new undies.

Yeah.

We're gone for two days.

They'll be fine.

I don't know why I spoke with

my heavy south accent.

We're talking about Michigan, which is not south of us.

No, it's not.

The other day we recorded a live show.

It was a video show, Java with Josh.

It was our second one.

And it kind of had a podcast feel, but it was

much more current event-y.

These podcasts are a lot of overarching topics that

are kind of evergreen.

And we had it live.

For me it's interesting, because these podcasts

are edited by you.

So we can make a mistake, you can adjust the microphone,

you can do stuff, and it just gets edited out.

Our listeners never hear that.

But you've been pushing me to make these live,

make these podcasts live.

We're going to try and do this as much as we can today,

without editing anything.

Okay.

That's fair.

Is that all right?

Yeah.

Are you committing to episode 42 being live?

I can do it, if you can.

I've been pushing for it from day one.

I think we should absolutely do it.

Okay.

We'll see what we can do there.

We'll start sending it out, and see if people watch it live.

And it makes your life a little bit easier from

the editing standpoint.

We can get more stuff done.

Josh, I'm a proud papa right now.

Why?

Not anything my kid did or anything.

You've noticed my sporadic work schedules of late?

Yeah.

Okay.

You may not have known where I've been going off to lately.

I don't even ask.

No, you don't want to know.

Well, we are approaching the 25th anniversary of

a very monumental moment in American history.

And I led a group of protestors.

And for the last few years actually, we have been posting

ourselves outside of Hasbro headquarters, demanding for

a re-release of something.

And just this past weekend, I actually dressed up as

one of these aforementioned characters, and tied myself

to a tree, and demanded a re-release of the Furby.

And Josh, today on Amazon, you can go and

buy a brand new Furby.

Thank you, Hasbro.

Your welcome, world.

You can thank me for it.

The Furby is not something I'm familiar

with, other than it's a term that I feel like it

gets referenced back to pop culture of our generation.

Okay, that's fair.

And you brought it up today on a team meeting

that our whole team attended.

And I have a surprise for you.

What's that?

There's one coming here Monday for you.

What?

I wanted to say thank you for all of the

hard work that you do, and I thought, what better way than

to buy you your own Furby?

And I wanted to share it with you live, but Amazon

is delivering it Monday.

Oh, this is the greatest day of my life.

You will not regret this.

You won't let me bring a dog in here, but this

is the next best thing.

I know nothing about this, but I'm sure

it will be entertaining.

It's going to revolutionize

the podcast industry.

Well, thank you, Josh.

I am humbled.

And you're going to love it, I promise you're going to love it.

It'll be entertaining.

It will be.

We've been going for a little bit here, and I have one

quick story, because this is a followup from our last episode.

At the beginning we were talking about my son,

Zach, and his glasses.

And your son, Landon, goes to the same eye doctor.

And you saw a picture of Zach there, and you sent

it to Missy and I, of his graduation from this therapy

that he's doing there.

And we talked in the last episode how we bought Zach

a new pair of glasses.

And how he deserved it so much, because he went four years and

never broke a pair, never lost a pair, never scratched a pair.

He is so careful with these glasses.

And we got these new pair of glasses from that eye doctor.

Guess what happened yesterday?

No.

Lens popped out.

He wasn't even doing anything.

He was just standing there.

All of a sudden he goes, "Mama, my lens popped out."

Missy goes, "I couldn't yell at him.

He wasn't doing anything."

They're back at the eye doctor today getting the lens fixed.

That is too funny.

Yeah, so I thought I'd follow that up

after I was talking about...

four years, we spend some money on a nice pair of

glasses for the kid, and, "Mama, my lens popped out."

Dave Schmidt:

That's how it works.

Dave Schmidt:

Is that your sister out there in the parking lot?

Yeah, my sister uses our dumpster.

Her husband, he reps different products.

And one of his products that he sells to small stores, is shoes.

When you rep shoes, you have to take these samples

into the stores, so they will send him one shoe,

so he gets the left pair.

That way they can double up, they can send

another rep the right.

So, they have a lot of shoes that they

can't do anything with.

And so, when they're no longer selling that version, they

have to get rid of these shoes.

Oh man, what a waste.

Yeah, it is.

They hate it.

And they're like, "Well, just tell us who has the other shoe,

and we'll donate them, we'll give them away to people."

And nope, they won't do it.

We will, a couple times a year in our office, have a dumpster

full of shoes, which is really confusing to a lot of people.

It's just like annuities, man.

If you really get down into it, it's just like annuities.

That was an amazing segue.

I've been working on it.

Thank you.

We promised part two, and today is part

two of annuities, baby.

And last week, or last episode, I spent some time

talking about all of the issues that people have with

them, and rightfully so.

There's a lot of reasons you shouldn't do them.

But as you actually led the show with last time,

there is no such thing as an inherently good or inherently

bad investment vehicle.

I led the show with that?

Well, yeah.

Well, you did when, you edited it together and the very

first thing people hear is, "There's no inherently good or

inherently bad place to put your money," coming from my voice.

That sounded like my political voice, apparently.

Um, but, um...

These all things, these things, these um, but,

um, you're going to have to work on that for the live stuff.

That is going to be, it's going to drive people crazy.

It drives you crazy.

It takes hours to get that out of the show.

I'm sorry.

That's all right.

All right.

I'm going to work on it.

I went straight into an um.

You did, you did.

I went straight into an um.

How do I start a sentence without um?

It shouldn't be that hard.

It shouldn't be.

I mean, I talk all day long.

All day.

But it's like, I can't form a

thought without saying um, then it's the thought.

I'm going to work on that really hard here today.

I don't have the answer for you.

I do tell you that I'm going to have to trim out

like three minutes of this, but we'll figure it out.

It's at 10 minutes already.

People love us.

Oh, that's true.

Okay.

All right, so we're talking, last week we talked about kind

of why people hate annuities.

And Erin spent a bunch of time coming up with, I'm

guessing not why people love annuities, but why

annuities are good for people?

What are you talking about here?

Well, last week we talked about a lot of the

downsides, or the things that get the really bad press.

And what I wanted to spend some time talking about today is

because nothing's inherently good or inherently bad, I want

to spend time on as to why, if we use them for a client,

because not all clients need them, but if we use them for

a client, why do we use them?

And I wanted you to understand some backgrounds behind them.

Bear with me as I get nerdy here for a few minutes,

because this is one of my favorite things to talk about.

You okay with that?

Yeah.

I'm going to stop saying um, and I'm going to stop

asking, does that make sense?

I do like the, does that make sense?

That's a nice little segue.

All right.

I'm glad I can keep that one.

I think the ums might be easier to get rid of.

The word annuity, when you look at the definition

of the word annuity, the definition of annuity is

just a stream of payments.

Anything can be an annuity.

Um...

um, I'm just going to point it out every time.

We need a button to hit.

But if you look at a pension, a pension is an annuity.

It's a stream of payments.

Social Security is an annuity.

It's a stream of payments.

So the first annuity that was ever created, was

what they called a, um...

I can't.

It's going to drive me nuts.

You're fine.

Yeah, don't fight it.

Just do it.

We'll work on it later.

Stop talking about it, is what you're telling me?

Yeah.

Just don't think about it.

All right.

If you don't hear any ums for the rest of the show, it's

because Dave just edited them out from this point forward.

But an immediate annuity was the first thing that

ever came into existence.

An immediate annuity was if you gave an insurance company

money, so let's say you gave them a hundred thousand dollars,

they would promise you like a pension, a stream of payments

for the rest of your life.

And that was an annuity, that was what people thought of.

There was good and bad to that.

The good was, you were promised a stream of payments

for the rest of your life.

The bad was, you gave up complete control of that money.

And so, it was good if you lived a long time, it was short if

you only lived a short time.

Because you gave them your money, let's say you gave

them a hundred thousand dollars, and they were going

to pay you $10,000 a year for the rest of your life,

and you lived two years.

Well, you just lost 80,000 bucks.

Well, if you live 20 years, you just made a lot of money.

So it had its good, its bad, its pros and cons.

That was the first original type of annuity.

And then they came up with what they called deferred annuities.

Deferred annuities, where you could stick money into it

and it would grow over time.

Does that make sense?

Mm-hmm.

And then after you let it grow, you have

the ability to turn it into that stream of payments.

Every annuity has the ability to turn it into

that stream of payments, but you didn't have to.

You could take it out if you wanted to, you could

do something else with it.

Deferred annuity is you put money in and it can grow.

And at some point in the future, you can turn it

into a stream of payments, or you can take it out.

So, there's two types, A and B.

Immediate, deferred.

And terms can vary?

Terms can vary.

You can have deferred annuities for a year.

You can have deferred annuities for 20 years.

You can even have a deferred annuity that's a year long,

that you just leave it in there for the rest of your life,

and it just continues to grow.

But that's the difference.

That's the two big types.

Now, inside of deferred annuities, there's

multiple different types of deferred annuities.

And this is where people get hung up.

Make sense so far?

Dave Schmidt:

Makes sense so far.

That's what I want to beat down a little bit.

The very first one was a fixed annuity.

A fixed annuity was the insurance company, it's

essentially a CD with an insurance company.

We all know what a CD is.

You go to the bank, you give them your money,

and they're going to promise you a percentage.

They promise you 5% for nine months, or whatever it might be.

A fixed annuity is the same thing.

It's just instead of going to a bank, you're going

to an insurance company.

Now, why would you do this?

Well, usually the insurance company has less liquidity

needs, so they can usually offer a little

bit higher rate of return.

It's not always the case, but they usually can.

And the second is, annuities have a tax

deferral available to them.

On a CD, the interest as you earn it is taxable to you.

You're going to see interest on your tax return.

In an annuity, you don't see that interest.

It just gets added to the account.

And then when you take it out, that's when the

taxable event occurs.

That allows you the ability to time your taxes.

I see.

See, I didn't even ask you if you understand.

That makes sense.

That's one of the benefits of deferred annuities.

The fixed annuity is the first type.

Then they got into the variable annuities.

The very first variable annuity was offered by TIAA-CREF, and

that was offered to teachers.

And what they did was instead of being a fixed rate in like a CD,

they made it a variable rate.

And that variable rate is tied to usually a stock market index.

Essentially what they did is they took mutual funds,

and they put them inside of a variable annuity.

Now, the big thing they always test you on when you get your

insurance test is, in a fixed annuity the risk is with the

insurance company, because the insurance company has

to earn that interest rate.

With the variable annuity, the risk is with the person

who put their money into it.

Because it depends upon what quote unquote, underlying

mutual fund that you choose.

if you have heard bad things about annuities, this

is where it's come from.

Because there are a lot of people that loved these variable

annuities, because they would pay a higher commission then

just using mutual funds.

And so people would say, "Hey, this client wants mutual

funds, but I can put them in a variable annuity, and have a

few other bells and whistles, and they'll get paid more."

And that's where the start of the really shady

sales processes came from.

That's the variable annuity.

Now, with technology nowadays, we very rarely see a lot

of uses in our practice for variable annuities.

There are different uses, just not a lot for our clients.

And I actually haven't used a variable annuity

since I was first in the business 25 years ago.

You're old.

Yeah, actually it sounds really freaking old.

It's been a long time since we've actually used one.

It reminds me of a 401k, where the employees

would be able to choose their investments within their 401k,

similar to a variable annuity.

Yeah, it's very similar.

Now, the reason it's a little bit different, the

reason it got the bad wrap is because it has higher fees.

Because you have the normal mutual fund fees, but then

you also have the additional fees that the annuity

charges on top of it there.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, makes sense.

Back to fees.

With the fixed annuity though, there are no

additional fees to it.

The interest rate that they pay you is how they

calculate out their fees, so it's very similar to a bank.

When you get a CD, there's not a fee that goes against your CD.

You know the bank's earning more money.

A fixed annuity is the same way.

Got it.

It's just the mutual fund fees, not an additional

fee on top of it.

Yeah.

Now, because the risk is not with the insurance company on

the variable annuity, they add fees to that, so that is why the

variable annuity have the higher fees, as that comes into play.

Now the The one that we use most in our office is something

called a fixed indexed annuity.

And a fixed indexed annuity is a little different.

It has the fixed component, but it does take some of the

interest rate sensitivity and applies it to the customer.

So instead of a set rate, instead of a set earnings,

like a CD or a fixed annuity has, what this

one does, is the earnings are tied to a stock index.

They have the guarantees, the reason they call it fixed is

because it can't lose money.

But it can earn money, and it's usually tied to a stock index.

The most common one being the S&P 500, but there's

a lot of different ones that are available to it.

In a year the S&P does well and goes up, you'll participate

in those gains and you'll get a percentage of it.

In years that it goes down, you'll just stay

even and stay flat.

We do use that a lot.

It allows us the ability to have some decent growth,

not have the risk associated with different investments,

and different downsides.

There is the time period issue with it.

It has the 10 year, a lot of them are eight, 10, 12

year surrender charges.

But if you can work around that, and you tie it into

your plan and your overall situation, it can provide

some really nice downside protection, some decent growth.

Especially in the interest rate environments we've been

having recently, where up until the last year, there have not

been decent interest rates on CDs and things like that.

These fixed index annuities have been a godsend for a lot

of clients in their portfolios, but you have to think about

them a little differently.

It's not a mutual fund, it's not a stock market tool.

It is designed for your low risk, your bond alternative,

things along those lines.

I can relate to this, because I just

bought 800 Furbies in hopes that they grow in value.

I would call your Furby purchase more of

a stock purchase, I think.

Well, right.

But I'm saying, but I have an annuity on the backend to

protect myself in case I lose all my Furby investments.

I thought her name was Carla.

Oh, wow.

Oh boy, oh boy.

It's funny, this is a good pause.

You need to work on your ums and your clicks, I need to

work on, and you fell prey to this during our Java with Josh.

I keep looking at the computer instead of our cameras,

because this is so new to us.

We'll get there.

We'll get there.

Well, I also feel like I should look at you.

We're the only two people here talking.

I feel like I should look at you, but whatever.

Yeah.

That creepy guy that lives in our closet.

We don't even know his name.

Let's call him Herb.

Herb?

Yeah.

I though it was...

no, Steve's the other side of the wall.

Oh yeah, Steven.

Well, I want to talk a little bit

about how we use them.

In theory, we're using fixed annuities or fixed

indexed annuities in our clients' portfolios.

And again, they're not for everybody, but for

certain people, they serve a really nice purpose.

Let's talk about what some of those purposes are.

The first one, we'll use it when we talk about having

a protected income bucket.

There's certain dollars that in retirement, you're

going to have to spend.

And it's really nice to have a low volatility asset, an asset

that doesn't have a lot of risk.

And if you want to spend down that annuity money, it's

a great ability to do it.

Now, you have to understand liquidity.

You have to make sure you have an advisor who can

factor liquidity into it.

But that protected income bucket is also your

permission slip to let your other assets sit and grow.

Because people, when they're working, we're really used to...

I don't really care what the market does.

I got time.

It was that whole retirement, hey, I'm going to spend my

money, so they get nervous and things like that.

But if you already know that the asset that you're spending,

like an annuity that can't lose money, then you have

this permission slip to let the rest of your money grow.

That's one that comes into play.

What about the third bucket?

I see protected income bucket, versus growth bucket, versus

bucket of fried chicken.

Bucket of fried chicken.

That is just for people like you, who need that incentive

to keep going forward there.

Fried chicken works for most people.

No one doesn't like fried chicken.

No, it's un-American to not

like fried chicken.

What about the third bucket?

The second reason we'll use them, is as a bond alternative.

James Bond.

Bond, James Bond.

Your Bond impersonation is much better than mine.

Most things I do is better than

Right now, it still serves true.

But we had a whole episode on bonds before, and it's

actually still relevant.

But back when interest rates were so low and the market

was so high, the bonds were supposed to provide downside

protection, and pay you a decent interest rate, and

they just weren't doing that.

And we were using the fixed annuities, and the fixed

index annuities to do that, to provide downside protection

and pay a decent interest rate.

And they still have, they still do.

And it's still a great bond alternative, if you think about

what the purpose of the bond is.

And we'll use that a lot of times inside our different

clients' portfolios there.

We have principal protection.

It's a great safe investment.

It hopefully will out earn cash over the long term it's there.

One we have on there is, there's certain annuities that have some

different tools built into it.

They will have either guaranteed income tools,

and it's a little different than the immediate annuity

I first talked about where you give up complete control.

Now, you actually have control.

If you die early, your loved ones and your heirs can still

get whatever's left over.

But they also can have some different long-term

care features built in.

For a lot of people, long-term care becomes really important.

And if you can have a stream of income that also has a benefit

for long-term care, that can mean a lot to a lot of people.

That gets to be taken into consideration as well.

That was actually a question I had earlier,

is upon death, does it act like a pension or something

that just continues to pay out to your beneficiary?

But you're telling me-

it can.

There's a lot more flexibility, and you have that ability

to have it keep paying out, or maybe a lump sum.

If there's a husband or wife, you can do it over

both of their lives.

There's a lot more flexibility and control, because you

own it, and that's there.

Now, this gets me to the the overarching

thought process here.

And that is that, back to the original thing I

said, it's never inherently good or inherently bad.

But it does have to apply to your specific situation.

Before you use them or before you deny them, make sure that

you understand exactly what the purpose is, and you have

a plan in place so that it works for your situation and

what you're trying to do.

They can be a great tool, and they can do harm, depending

upon how you use them.

The annuities that we talk about, and that we use in our

clients' scenario, yeah, they're the same annuities that there's

people out there screaming, "I hate annuities," but they're

trying to sell something too.

And so, when we work it in and we work it into our clients'

situation, it can serve a huge purpose and a huge benefit.

Now, when we make that recommendation, we always

say we're only doing it because we think it's

of your best interest.

If you don't agree with it, if you are so anti-annuity that

you can never get over it, okay, we'll do something different.

It's just in our thought process, it probably won't be

as good as what we have here.

That is our thought process on how we think about annuities

in our clients' portfolios.

There's always investing in Furbies.

Your first one's coming on Monday, buddy.

You have no idea.

I'm so pumped.

I forget what color I ordered you though.

The purple or the coral, I'm thrilled with either.

It's going to be great.

Are you here Monday, before your trip on Tuesday?

I am going to be here Monday.

Oh, I hope it shows up early.

I hope so too.

You know, can add little charms to them.

I think it comes with a pizza charm.

You can add additional charms, and I will be adding charms.

Is it going to stay here in the office, or are

you taking it home with you?

Oh, it's going to be an an office mascot, I think.

Oh, great.

I look forward to it.

I may buy Landon his own.

But he's going to be with us whenever we're recording.

We'll have to name him.

Well Dave, we've been talking here for a

while, and I think it's time.

[singing].

For people that don't know us, we come up

with these little tiny things we spend a lot of effort

trying to put in place, and they don't always pay

off, but that one worked.

Did you hear it?

That was amazing.

I was worried about the song being too loud.

And that's why I'm like, which one is the sound

effects, is it the first one?

That's sound effects, or this is the

pad, that's the Bluetooth.

Okay, so turn it down.

Go ahead, play it again.

Can you play it again?

Yeah, I can play it again.

Just in case people didn't pick up on it.

That, folks, is a blue jay.

And this comes from a YouTube that I found, that is a

guy that teaches you how to make common bird calls.

Oh, he's my hero.

For context, last episode, I essentially accosted you for

not having original bird sounds.

And you stepped up and said, "I cannot let my buddy down today."

Yeah, so now I am no longer making bird sounds.

I am going to let this guy...

that was a morning dove man.

And he's going to come in and play with us, as times go on.

You have no idea what this has done to our

street cred for our podcast.

Official bird sounds.

So, get to know Josh and Dave.

Dave, you leave for vacation next week.

You're going to Colorado, and then I take my vacation at

the end of July with the kids.

What is one thing that you are super excited to do

with Landon on vacation?

We have three things planned,

and they're all awesome.

Now, I'm worried this is gonna be like the

dogs game, and all of a sudden you just can't...

you're going to say you're so excited for

it, and you can't do it.

I know.

We've been watching the forecast.

I think we're clear.

I want to say two.

Okay, go ahead.

Go ahead.

We're going to a Colorado Rockies game, which

he been to a Major League Baseball game before?

He's been to a couple Sox games.

We're going to the Cubs Sox game in August.

Oh, nice.

But this will be his first

non-Illinois sports team.

He's been playing a lot of MLB The Show on Switch, so

he's seen what different stadiums look like.

I think it's going to be cool for him to walk into a

totally different environment.

I think that'll be a lot of fun.

The whole family's going, we got like 20

tickets or something, so.

Oh, that would be awesome.

Yeah, it's going to be great.

And then I think I mentioned before, we rented boats.

We're going to go into Lake Dillon, which is just

the most gorgeous lake.

It looks like you're in a fjord.

You're in between huge foothills, with mansions on

the top, and you're driving a boat through there, and it's

maybe an hour from Breckenridge.

We'll do that afterwards.

That was one of my favorite days last time I went out there.

I got a migraine, and I still loved that day last time.

We're pumped, man.

That's really cool.

That's really cool.

Yeah, thanks Josh.

How about your trip to The Bahamas coming up?

What are you looking forward to?

Well, this one is...

we did The Bahamas a couple years ago with the kids, and

we did the whole kiss a dolphin thing, where you get in this

pool with the dolphins, and the trainers bring them up, and

you get to pet them and feed them fish, and stuff like that.

And we were excited, the kids were so excited.

Well, Alex freaked out.

He wanted nothing to do with it.

Wouldn't get near the pool, wouldn't do anything.

We have pictures of me, with Zach and Maggie holding them

in the pool, and the dolphins come up and Maggie's kissing it.

And I have a picture of them behind me, Alex just moping.

Missy's like, oh my God, I want to be in the

pool with the dolphins.

And so, this time I'm looking forward to Alex

being able to do that.

Because I think he regrets it, even from that

young age at this point.

And I hope he can overcome that fear.

And I get it.

It's a weird thought, but-

Yeah, that's cool.

And you guys are actively talking about it now,

so he's ready to do it?

He's ready.

He's talking about it.

He's excited for it.

I think he's comfortable in the water now, and it'll be...

I'm sure he'll still be a little bit nervous.

Sure.

Just be like, look at vacation Zach right here.

He's got Sean the duck-billed platypus.

He does.

The duck-billed platypus will

get you through the day.

You know, I'm going to...

we have the Alex-

hashtag tax nerd.

That we drop in here.

I'll see if I can get Zach to have Sean talk for me, and

record it, because Sean talks.

Yeah, of course.

And it's kind of like one of those characters

that everyone pretends they know what they're

saying, but no one has any idea what they're saying.

And Zach translates for us, it's fantastic.

So I'll see if I can't get that.

Kind of like ordering [Drive

thru shenanigans].

Yes.

Kevin Collins is very much that way.

Dave relates to retirees, yeah.

Speaking of Kevin Collins, this is going to be back to back

episodes talking about my boy.

Back in high school basketball we sometimes needed a way

to blow off some steam.

When you say we, are we talking about,

am I included in this?

Is this the mutual we, or is this not me?

I don't know if you were there.

When I tell this story, you may remember.

But it was definitely me, Kevin and Vince.

The three amigos that often got into shenanigans.

The three main characters in the drive-through shenanigans,

were also responsible for what I'm about to tell you.

After a tough basketball loss, we would sometimes

just need to blow off steam.

And we weren't aggressive individuals, we're not going

to go smash stuff or anything.

But we had to find something that served us well, served our

purpose of blowing off steam, and didn't really care about

how it affected other people.

So we put our minds together, we first branded

ourselves as the TPC.

Do you remember what the TPC was?

Kind of, it's starting to come back to me.

Well, the very first victim of the

TPC was Jonathan Flatley.

And we drove by opened the doors, and we jumped

out, and TP'd the crap out of John Flatley's house.

Jumped in the car, and sped away.

The TPC was the Toilet Paper Clan.

That's just who we were.

That was our way of blowing off steam.

It served us extremely well.

It did not necessarily serve others, AKA people's

houses, who we TP'd, as well.

That is why it is like an annuity, my friend.

It served a very specific purpose in our emotional

portfolio of 17-year-old minds, back in the day.

Now, I'll let you fester on how to relate that to what we're

talking about today, while I tell you other houses that

we TP'd during our tenure.

Cops eventually found us, locked us up for a few days.

No, just kidding.

We just stopped because we got bored.

But we hit up Coach Prunty.

You TPC'd Coach Prunty?

We drove out to his house and TPC'd him.

Yep.

He was not thrilled, because I believe it rained that night.

He lived on the south side of Chicago.

Yeah.

But again, we were dedicated to our organization.

And I can't remember anybody else that we TP'd,

but we did at least five, because we spent most of

our money on toilet paper.

So Josh, right now, I broke a pen, but the Full

House music is starting.

I hope you've had enough time to put the pieces together.

You gave me a hard time when I couldn't come up

with bird noises for that song.

And I think there's some definite reaching that's been

going on here with this DR2R.

Because the TPC does apply to you, and it's

very specific to you.

And you probably angered a few people.

And I will actually tell you, my father, who you know well, I

believe you TPC'd our house at one point in time, and I don't

think he appreciated it either.

And I think as a teenage boy, I knew that he

wouldn't enjoy it so much.

I probably also was like, oh no, Dad's not going to

be happy about this one.

But probably still enjoyed some laughs with you over

it, and I hope you got to blow off some steam.

But I would like to think that annuities serve a broader

purpose for more people, than just the three people

who lost a basketball game.

You're not connecting this at all to-

no, I'm really having a hard

time with this one.

I did it for you.

I said, it served us well, but may not have served others well.

Yeah, I could see that.

I could see that.

You know what?

That makes sense.

It served you well.

I would not have been comfortable doing that.

That's my point.

We never asked goody-two-shoes like you to join us.

No, that's true.

I would not have been comfortable doing that,

but it did serve you well.

And I guess we know what is right for our own situation.

I don't know if you had an advisor that was trying to

tell you to blow off steam that way, or something along

those lines, but that was...

When we filed our articles of incorporation.

I was the-

for TPC?

Yeah, I was the president of TPC, so I

really answered to no one.

You've continued that thought

the rest of your life.

In fact, when we did TP John Flatley's

house, he literally chased us.

And we were in my two door Chevy Cavalier.

And I clearly remember, you remember where John lived?

Oh yeah.

I know right where John lived.

Yeah.

And racing through the back streets of, really

kind of uptown Elmhurst, trying to get away from him.

And I finally pulled into a driveway, and one of those

scenarios where he drove right past us, because I

turned off the lights, and it was a deep driveway, and

I was able to pull way in.

Who knows who's house I was hiding out in?

He eventually claims he saw my car.

We never admitted guilt to it.

But yeah, I remember there was a high speed car chase

through my Chevy Cavalier.

We would even go as far as to spell out TPC in toilet

paper on the sidewalk.

I don't know if we just wetted it down so it would stay there.

But we had our signature and everything, man.

I still can't believe you drove down to

the south side of the city to TP Coach Prunty's house.

You know what?

We may have done it.

We did a team dinner at his house, so we may have

planned it ahead of time to do it right afterwards.

That kind of sounds familiar now.

Oh, man.

Oh gosh, the good old days.

We got to wait for Kevin and Vince to start

listening to these, man, because they're going to

be coming up more and more.

Our listeners are so excited.

They love reliving our high school glory days.

Well Dave, again, I'm entering a point here where I'm not

going to see you for a little bit of time, so I hope you

have a wonderful trip out to Colorado, and you get to spend

some time with your family.

And I know you're going to see Cowboy Mike out there.

Sure will.

And I hope he behaves himself.

I hope so too.

He can get wild.

He can get wild.

And tell your sisters I said hi, and I miss hanging

out and laughing with them.

I'll do that, Josh.

Maybe we'll FaceTime you when we're all together.

Perfect.

Cool.

All right, Josh.

Well, we'll see you in about a week and a half.

And to everybody out there, bye.

Bye.

TPC is coming for you.

What are you going to do?

That one really was a stretch for me.

I thought it was one of my better

ones, but apparently not.

Hashtag tax nerd.

FSR Wealth Management is a registered

investment advisor located in Elmhurst, Illinois.

Information and opinions contained in this audio

have been arrived at by FSR Wealth advisors.

All information herein is for informational purposes

and should not be construed as investment advice.

It does not constitute an offer, a solicitation or recommendation

to purchase any security.

FSR is not providing legal, tax, accounting, or financial

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