08.18.26 Ask An Advisor With Wes Moss

What History Really Says About All-Time Market Highs & Should You Move to a 55+ Community? With the S&P 500 continuously hitting new all-time highs in 2026, many investors are wondering if the market has moved too far, too fast. In this episode, Wes Moss dives into the history of market highs, explaining why record-breaking runs are actually far more common—and far less dangerous—than headlines suggest. Also, Wes tackles one of the biggest lifestyle decisions in retirement: deciding where to live. Maintaining a vibrant social circle gets harder as we age, but moving to an active 55+ community can provide the built-in social network, amenities, and lifestyle needed to thrive. Wes walks through a real-life case study of how to properly research, visit during peak seasons, and test-drive these neighborhoods before buying. Plus, he reveals a clever tax strategy for funding your next home without triggering a massive tax bill. Mentioned on the show: Should You Be Nervous About All-Time Market Highs? What History Really Tells Us The Overlooked 'Rule of 55' Could Unlock an Earlier Retirement A Simple Rule for When To Take Social Security Plus, Christa shares your #AskWes questions and Wes gives his take. All this and more on the August 18, 2026, Ask an Advisor episode of the Clark Howard podcast. Submit your questions: WesMoss.com/ask Discover the research-backed path to a happier retirement – pre-order The Retire Sooner Method by Wes Moss today at retiresoonermethod.com We hope you enjoy our weekly Ask An Advisor episodes. Let us know what you think in the comments! Learn more about Wes: BOOKS BY WES MOSS Wes Moss, CFP® Wes Moss - Clark.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  Pricing participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 0:49Speaker 03

  Welcome to another episode of Ask an Advisor on The Clark Howard Show. I'm Krista DeBias here with Wes Moss. Hello, Wes.

• 0:57Speaker 04

  And I'd say it's not just another show. This is going to be hopefully a super show.

• 1:02Speaker 03

  A super show, always. That's our goal every single week. And also, I wanted to mention that if you have a question for Wes or for Clark Howard, Clark will be back tomorrow, on Wes's website, you can ask him a question. WesMoss.com, W E S M O S S dot com slash ask. And on Clark's site, Clark.com slash ask. Today, there have been some market, many market all time highs recently, Wes. And should we fear a correction? You're going to talk about that to start us out.

• 1:33Speaker 04

  The market has been somewhat bananas to the upside. And I think it gets people a little bit nervous.

• 1:39Speaker 03

  Right. Some of the stats you were telling me are very, very interesting. And then something we've been asked about in the past, 55 plus communities. And that's different from a continuing care retirement community. So there are different types of.

• 1:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, this has nothing to do with healthcare.

• 1:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:55Speaker 04

  This is about what should you consider when you're moving, maybe moving in retirement?

• 2:01Speaker 03

  Okay. So we'll get to that. And of course, all of your questions.

• 2:05Speaker 04

  All right. So too far, too fast. Is that the concern? Or if you've maybe looked at your 401k account, you've seen that 2026 has had a really, really strong run in a lot of different ways. One, we've had a series of all time highs, new all time highs. And this is for the S and P 500. There's the Dow and the Nasdaq, but I'm talking about S and P 500. And it just means that it closes at the end of the day at a new level that it's never seen before. So it's inching its way higher up a mountain. And that's how you get technically an all time high. And I think anytime we get one of these, and there were a bunch of these in 2025, there were a bunch in 2024, there were zero new all time highs in 2023.

• 2:50Speaker 04

  So I think it's important to go back and look at history and see the frequency of these events. And then what does it mean moving forward? That's really all that matters when we're talking about investing. It's, we always can talk about what just happened because we know. We want to know though, what that means in context for the next three months, six months, year, et cetera. And I think that's why studying history is really helpful for investors. The other thing that happened, and there's some history behind this as well, there was a short five day period in really end of July, early August, that was what is considered a 99 percentile move, meaning that that five day stretch was better than 99% of all

• 3:33Speaker 04

  five day stretches going all the way back to 1950.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  So a super rare event. And this was a 99% move or a top 1% move to the upside. Again, same worry that I think all of us will have. Well, wait a minute, the market just went up a bunch in a really short period of time? Does that mean it's got to correct? Should we be preparing for a correction? Let's just look at the history about that. So one, we should always be prepared for a correction. Whether the market is down 5 or 10%, we should always be ready for another move that's down 10% because that does happen over and over and over again. The full 10% correction happens on average every year or two. Remember, the average intra-year decline for the market is close to 15, 16% in an

• 4:22Speaker 04

  average year. And when I say intra, I mean that sometimes we'll go up 7% and then we're down, and then we're down 15 from the high. But the market frequently corrects and we always have to know that. But when you get into a series of new, brand new spots higher on the mountain, yeah, I think it makes people a little bit nervous and you start to question, well, gosh, shouldn't we be getting closer to the market correcting?

• 4:47Speaker 03

  We're going to have a September surprise?

• 4:50Speaker 04

  Exactly. Not to mention the worries that will accompany us as investors at any given time. And it's not just 2026, but there's always a worry geopolitically. Right now, it's the Middle East and Iran. There's always a worry about oil prices going up too high. Inflation, what the Fed's going to do. Are earnings coming in well enough to not create a quote, bubble of overvaluation in the market? And these are perennial worries and different ones pop up, kind of like a game of whack-a-mole at any given time, but there's plenty of those as well. So let's just look at the history. The all time highs are much more common than we might think. The media makes a little bit of a big deal.

• 5:33Speaker 04

  They make a much bigger deal about a correction, but they, they mention all time highs. And to some extent, it makes it seem like it's a really rare event, a new all time high. And technically it is because that new all time high has never happened in the history of the world. So it is a once in a lifetime thing. It just so happens we get them in clusters. And so far this year, we've had more than two dozen once in a lifetime events, new all time highs in 2026. So if we're looking at market history, they really do tend to come in clusters, meaning that we have years, for example, 2009, 10, 11, and 12, there were zero all time highs.

• 6:16Speaker 04

  If you look at 74, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, there were zero all time highs. So there are lots of stretches where we didn't see an all time high, 2001, 2002, 3, 4, 5, et cetera. And that's usually because the market is in recovery mode from a big correction and it hasn't gotten back to the previous level where it was. But once it does, it does tend to go on these multi all time high runs. And we see many of them in any given year. 2017, there were 62 of them. In 2018, there were 19 new all time highs. There were 36 of them in 2019.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  And then the year of COVID, which was a disastrous year early on, it was a big bear market. We were down over, down over 30% in a really, really small window, only to finish the year with 33 new all time highs. So the market tends to get this flywheel momentum. And just because we get an all time high doesn't mean we were not going to get another one. It really, it typically means we will get more. So it's, there is a momentum that has to come into play in order to get an all time high. And we've had that in 24, 25, and now in 26, we continue, we've continued to see new all time highs.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  And the reason is that it takes a lot, if you really think about it, for the US stock market, which is now approaching $70 trillion, Krista.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  Think about the energy and momentum for that massive asset to continue to get bigger. A lot of things have to be going right, more things going right than wrong. And so history shows us that on average, all time highs actually point to better markets than average, very, very slightly. Now, the nuance of what just happened in August is that we had a 1% move in a five year period. That's, that's really rare. And the market was up almost 6% in just a matter of five days. Again, a big percentage on an already massive asset. What happens historically, once that happens? And this is what's interesting.

• 8:31Speaker 04

  Over the next two months, we see on average, normally a two month period, the market averages about 2%, 2, 2.5%. But post a 1% upside move, like we saw in August, on average, we see markets go up another five and a half to 6%. Again, a little bit of that flywheel momentum story historically and then over, call it a six month period of time, markets on average over, over 125 trading days are up around four or 5%. However, post these rare events, markets have averaged almost 11 to 12%.

• 9:14Speaker 04

  So the new all time high doesn't at all historically say we're doomed for a correction. Doesn't mean it won't, one won't happen, but if we go back and we study stock market history, it usually points to further momentum. Once it's already happened.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Okay. Well, let's go to some questions. This one came in from Chris in Texas. Hi Wes, I'm 50 and my wife is 54. We've been dreaming about retiring early so we can spend more time pursuing the things we really enjoy. Between us, we have about 2.45 million in pre-tax retirement accounts, 530K in Roth accounts, 125,000 in taxable investments and 90,000 in cash. We also have about 135,000 saved in 529 plans for our two kids who are 15 and 13. I earn about 200,000 a year and my wife around 130,000. We have no car, credit card debt. Our home should be paid off by 2030 and our household expenses are about 120,000 a year. We'd like to retire.

• 10:16Speaker 04

  That's key. 120K a year. Got it.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  We'd like to retire in the next three to four years. Our biggest concerns are paying for private health insurance until Medicare and covering any college costs beyond what we've saved in the 529s. Are we financially positioned to retire that early or are we getting ahead of ourselves? What would you want to see us have in place before we make the leap?

• 10:37Speaker 04

  Hey, Chris in Texas, I'm doing some quick math here. You guys are young, I mean 50 is young to really be thinking about stopping work. I love this and your wife's 54, young. You guys have big income, 200,000 and 130,000 respectively. The cool part about this is the no debt, except for the mortgage. So it's 2026, in four years, you're going to be mortgage free. So you'll be 54, which aligns up with your timeline, three to four years. Your wife will be 58, which it sounds like that's probably why you guys are thinking about being in a position to stop working then. And the key here for this, Chris, is the spending.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  You guys are spending 120 a year and that probably includes the mortgage because it's not even paid off. So technically your spending would be less than this 120 a year, starting in 2030. So let's just do some math here on your assets, even if they don't grow at 3.2 million, which is substantial, even if you're looking at the 4% rule, that in itself is 128 before social security even kicks in.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  Now, I wonder, that's 128 before taxes, right? I'm assuming this 120 is post-tax spending.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, the 120 is post-tax, but I wonder.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  But the mortgage is probably in it.

• 11:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, the mortgage is probably two grand a month. So that's another 24. So I bet you the spending is more like 100K when there's no mortgage.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  That's why that's an important money greens. That's a, the housing money green zone is, is a big deal.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  It's huge. Yeah.

• 12:12Speaker 04

  It's a really big deal. So let's assume 100K in spending, you're going to have 128 gross in income. And here's the other thing, you guys are used to paying huge taxes. Now Texas, you don't have to worry about state tax, but you guys are earning 330 and your federal tax bracket is pretty high. The cool thing about retirement that is an unspoken surprise to the good, because there's a lot of surprises to the bad, Krista, but one of the surprises to the good is that you're used to paying 25, 30% in taxes. Now all of a sudden you're going to be paying, let's call it 15. That's a big difference on a net basis. And I think that makes your plan work.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  Now you don't have a math problem because you have the money even without social security and then social kicks in and that'll be another 60K a year. So really you guys will have 180, 190K once social kicks in. Now that may, that's still a little ways out because that's 62 at the earliest, Chris. But you have a little bit of a timing problem. That's the only issue here is that 59 and a half is the year where you can touch, when you can get to the biggest piece of the equation. Fortunately for you guys, you've got this Roth money and I bet you some of that 2.45 billion in retirement is also 401K money.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  So even if you stop work before that age of 55 rule, Krista, we've talked about.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 13:41Speaker 04

  Your wife is already almost there. So what I would do is I would leave enough, I would leave enough in her 401K or 403B, whatever she has, because then if, and then she stops work at say 57, 58, she can use the rule of 55 and she can tap, let's say there's three, 400K in that, she's fine to go ahead and tap that without the penalty. Still taxes, but the other bridge you could certainly use here is the Roth. The Roth account, remember you can pull your contributions without any taxes and help bridge you to the age of 59 and a half, when the whole kit and caboodle becomes available to you without any sort of taxes.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  So I think you guys are absolutely, you're already hitting essentially all, all three money green zones. And I think you guys are going to be totally fine when you, in three to four years, when you're ready to do it.

• 14:37Speaker 03

  How about the healthcare?

• 14:39Speaker 04

  Healthcare shouldn't be a problem. The healthcare through ACA, you've got it bridged to 65 and you're just going to have to pay for healthcare insurance over the course of that. It's a pretty long period of time, eight, nine years. The good news is your income will be lower. So probably won't get a supplement still because your income's high enough, but looking at your budget here, the healthcare will be a big line item, but it'll be affordable.

• 15:06Speaker 03

  Kirk in Indiana says, when might it make sense to disclose our financial circumstances to our three adult children? We're in our mid 60s and have done well and having reached $10 million in net worth level recently. Each of our three are in relatively high income positions and I have no entitlement concerns for any of them. I played the role of financial gatekeeper for my parents and my in-laws as they aged beyond 75 and it was a great help to them and to us in handling their relatively simple estate affairs when they passed away. Ours would be more complex and have identified one of our three to be the lead in this regard. I would value your thoughts on this question.

• 15:44Speaker 04

  By the way, I don't know if our audience wants to see that, but that's the scribble.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  If you're watching the YouTube.

• 15:50Speaker 04

  Chris's question. We should have a version of this that's politely and neatly drawn. That'd be cool, but I don't know how we would do that because it happens really pretty quickly. All right.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  If you want to watch the YouTube version, by the way, go to youtube.com/Clark.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  Okay. So Kirk in Indiana. Yeah, this is a good problem to have. Sounds like you've got one lead, one favorite child. That's cool. That happens in every family. There's one, it's not the only one that's responsible. It's the one that's the most responsible and we all know who that child is. Sometimes there's like a tiebreaker, but that's totally normal. The cool thing is that all three kids are independent and they earn a good living on their own and you're already in their 60s. This is one of the biggest thoughts as a parent is that we want our kids before we start to let them know we have, in this case, a huge amount of money, big net worth. We want them to get financially fully molded, fully developed.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  And I really believe that by the time you're 30, your money DNA is fully formed. Your frontal cortex is fully developed and the way you are with money at 30 is the way you are with money forever, pretty much. So the good news is Kirk, your kids are probably already there and you know their habits. You know, if one's a little overly spendy, one's maybe super cautious with money. They're more like Clark. You've got one child that's maybe, you know, the opposite of Clark, but that's totally fine because what you need to do now is start to have these conversations. And what I would do is have a separate conversation with, with each kid because they don't know that you have $10 million.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  They think you, maybe dad and mom have a couple million or two bucks. They don't know. So you, you'll sit down with them individually and talk about the family finances in general. It's almost like when you have a change at a company, you want to do it organically so that it's not a giant shock to everybody all at once. So you're essentially socializing the net worth of the family, which in it is very healthy, particularly when they're 30. So you talk to all three separately. They all kind of have an idea that favorite child number, let's say three is the one that's going to, to some extent, maybe be the ultimate trustee and have the responsibility of the nuances of it, but it's all their money. It doesn't sound like one's going to get more than the other. One's just kind of the lead and you always need one lead.

• 18:21Speaker 04

  And then you have a meeting Kirk with all three of them together. Maybe it's you, your wife and the three kids. And then they already kind of know what's going to happen from an estate perspective. And I think that's a powerful meeting. And if you've socialized it prior, there's no big shocks. And then you have a nice family conversation about it and it's ongoing because God willing, you live another 40 years. They're not even really going to get the money for a long time, but it's good that they know about it so that they have some inclination that eventually this is part of the overall family wealth, but they're already earning their own money and they're not going to stop.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  Okay. And in New York says, I have a seven year old with just over $100,000 in a 529 plan for college. I will need to pay around $6,000 for private education next year. I have the cash to pay for it, but I was wondering whether there's any benefit to taking it from the 529. One thing I thought about is that I get a $10,000 tax deduction on my New York taxes. So I'm thinking I can use the 6K to pay for education, then in turn top off the account with $6,000. What do you think?

• 19:28Speaker 04

  First, this is, oh, and we'll say Ned in New York.

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Could be Nancy.

• 19:34Speaker 04

  Could be Nancy in New York. I think the answer is no here. I don't think you can do that. Here's why. You're totally right that K through 12 in a 529 plan is fine now. We can do that. And it used to be, it was at 10 grand last year. Now I think it's up to 20K for private school. And you got a deduction to put this money in, in a New York 529 plan. And federally, you're totally allowed to do this, pull money out and pay the $6,000 or $7,000 for this private school. The problem, and this is my understanding, that New York state moves to the beat of its own drum.

• 20:16Speaker 04

  So you end up, if you take the money out for first grade, second grade, let's say, there's what's called a recapture back on your, on the deduction that you got. So federally, it's still fine. You wouldn't owe taxes federally, but I believe, and I'm not a New York CPA, so you want to check with a New York CPA here, that you end up getting a recapture, essentially a disallowance of the deduction that you got. Now, it may not be that big of a, of a number because we're only talking about $6,000 or $7,000 here. It may be a small percentage, a fraction of that, but I think that if you already have

• 20:55Speaker 04

  the cash, and I would let that 100K continue to grow for college, and I would be paying potentially that private school right now, still just out of your cash because of that wonky New York rule.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  That's too bad. All right, well, we're going to take a quick break and when we get back, 55 plus communities.

• 21:17Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5, only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 22:03Speaker 05

  Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Gatorade zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body with a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.

• 22:31Speaker 06

  This holiday, all plans, even unlimited are just $15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song like All I Want.

• 22:42Speaker 06

  Right. Okay, we can afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're going to stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch.

• 22:50Speaker 05

  Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 month plan required. $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. See terms.

• 23:02Speaker 07

  Modafinil was invented in the 1970s and has been used by the highest performers on and off the planet. Soldiers, pilots, and even astronauts aboard the ISS use modafinil in high-stakes situations where full concentration and alertness are paramount. And it's now available in liquid form to qualified patients at mod.com. Visit mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order plus free shipping with promo code spotify at mod.com.

• 23:32Speaker 04

  Welcome back to Ask an Advisor. I'm Wes Moss, along with Krista Debiass. Is moving in retirement a good idea? What are the pitfalls? What should we be thinking about? And I wanted to do this today because I'm fresh off of a very real life example that kind of played out over the last six months to a year where, and this, so this isn't just for 55 plus or retirement folks. I think this is important for anybody to be thinking about because it really comes back to, so if you're 30, why do you like your house or not like your house? Well, maybe partially because of your house, but it's also because of your street and it's because of your neighborhood and it's because of your town and it's because of your city and it's because of your state.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  It matters where we live, our community supersedes all. And that's why we love where we live or we don't love where we live. And it gets even more important as you go in from your 30s to 40s into your 50s and particularly in retirement, because no, we're no longer working. We, our kids have moved away or they're out of the house. We've stopped working. We don't have socialization at work. Our friends move, die, get sick, things change. And we have to fight an uphill battle to maintain our community. And when, this is a family that I've worked with for a long time, came to me after retiring

• 24:52Speaker 04

  in his later 60s, actually, and said, I really want to get to a place in America that I can do all the things I want to do. I like to golf, don't love to golf, like to be outside. That's a big part of the equation, but I also want people around, so there's some activity. And if I'm going to move, I want to move to a place where I can find a new community. And that's a hard thing to do, let alone figure out how to pay for it. And a lot of people are in a position today where if you move, you got to buy a house first, then sell your old house. So you have an underlap of funding. And if you've been investing and saving for a long time, you may, you probably end up having a lot of capital gains. So to sell and buy another place could be a big taxable hit. So we've got two problems to solve here.

• 25:36Speaker 04

  One is really a where do we go problem or a research phase? And the research is for the community and an affordable home. The second phase is how do we pay for it? So the first phase here, and I love how this gentleman did this. And here's, I have more nuances about this. I sent him a list of seven or eight different 55 plus communities. Now, 55 plus just means that there's, there's no kids there.

• 26:06Speaker 03

  In the neighborhood.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  Doesn't mean that it's a continue, a CCRC. It's not a continuing care facility. This is not a nursing home, assisted living. This is, this is just a neighborhood that's all grownups. And if you're 55, you're pretty young for the group. The average age of a lot of these is late 60s, early 70s. And there's people that are older than that, but they all are in a health position where they can live independently, just like any other normal neighborhood, with a drop or two of what living in a country club would look like, because there's usually a big clubhouse and a pool and maybe a golf course. In this case, he didn't land with one with a golf course, but there's three of them five minutes away. And they don't all let you rent, so it's hard to go test them out.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  That's an interesting nuance here. And this, anybody that's in Texas or Arizona or California or Georgia or Pennsylvania, we all know of places we may want to migrate to when it's our next phase. A lot of times it'll look closer to the beach. A lot of people in Georgia will look at the Southern Gulf, they'll look at Florida, they'll look at the coastal areas of South Carolina as an example. And there's a lot of cool communities along that way. There's Hilton Head, there's Myrtle Beach, there's Bluffton, where there's pretty affordable housing. And in this case, the budget was sub 500K, which again is pretty affordable for the world we live in today, particularly for a new place with a great community.

• 27:37Speaker 04

  And he went and visited on two different occasions. In some cases, he was able to rent in that community and test it out for three or four days. In other cases, they didn't allow it. So he had to stay at a hotel and then just kind of pretend to be there. And they're welcoming to do that. So you hang out of the clubhouse, you see the facilities, the gym, the workout, the, all the different clubs that are available. And it was really cool to think about. One was Margaritaville that ended up being way too big. It was like 5,000 homes going to 10. They're mixed up in my head a little bit, but another was a really nice Del Webb community, also massive. We've all probably heard about the villages in Florida, maybe too much activity for some people. Some people describe that almost as like a constant spring break, which is like too much.

• 28:22Speaker 04

  But that place has about 100,000 people. So these are not just little communities. These are like, these are small cities. And what Joe ended up ultimately doing is finding, going back twice, he did something smart and went back during the peak tourist month, which in most coastal communities, it's July, 4th of July, the whole month, and it gets wild and crazy and crowded and the residents don't like it. In this particular case, it was totally fine. It wasn't overly crowded. And he went to, he probably looked at seven or eight of these different places, communities, and ultimately found one that checked all the boxes in the mid 400 range for a great

• 29:05Speaker 04

  place, gave up golf one minute away because golf was six minutes away. No big deal in the compromise. But the community and the people and the food and the restaurants and all the other amenities and the activities all checked his boxes and the price checked all his boxes as well. So it's really kind of a cool multi-month research project, which I think is so, why wouldn't you want to spend the time to land at the right community that he and his wife, or maybe future wife, have now landed in and are now ready to start out new life in a new community and a house that they can afford. And maybe for a different day, we'll talk about

• 29:49Speaker 04

  how they were able to do that without having to sell a bunch of their long-term capital gains.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  I think you should say it real quick because we're gonna-

• 29:56Speaker 04

  All right, here's a very quick way to do it. If you have a brokerage account that is highly appreciated, let's say the basis is 400, it's worth a million. If you were to say, gosh, I need 500K to buy a house, then you're going to have huge taxes on doing so. So instead, most of the big brokerage firms allow you to take a asset line, like a home equity line, but it's on your brokerage account. Now, you have to pay interest on it. You don't have to pay back the principal because usually you're doing this for short-term periods of time. So he's able to not have to sell anything, pay for the home, borrowing money on the account, and then when he sells his existing home in, and it really doesn't matter, in two months from now, three or four months from now, he'll only pay a couple of months of interest,

• 30:41Speaker 04

  and then he gets to pay off the loan, and he's back to where he started without having to sell anything and only pay a couple of months of interest. So there's some flexibility for folks that have big embedded gains, which is super common today because markets have done so well for the last couple of years.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  All right, we'll go to questions. Mark in Wisconsin says, I've listened to you talk about the retirement green zones, and I feel that I'm on a good path to be in or near the green zone for liquid assets and income, but I'm not a homeowner and I don't expect that to change. I'm 62 and I expect to retire in four or five years. Do you have any suggestions for renters approaching retirement?

• 31:20Speaker 04

  Hey, Mark in Wisconsin. So it would be great to hit all three green zones, over a million dollars plus in liquid assets, 100K in income that's going to be ongoing for the rest of your retirement that should hopefully, that should be able to increase for inflation, and having no, having mortgage payoff within sight. We had a question earlier about this because that saves you, it frees up $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 a month in discretionary spending that was going to a big bank, now it's going to travel or what the things you love to do. So yeah, it'd be great if you had all three, but the good news is you have two,

• 32:00Speaker 04

  they're all super important. And it's funny, if I had to rank them, they're all almost equally important, but I think having the liquidity one in that green zone maybe is the most. And then the income, maybe that's the most, and those are all covered. So in your particular case, your budget forever, because you're going to continue to rent, you may change your mind and buy, it's not impossible at all, is just going to have to have that line item that is $2,000, $3,000 a month in rent that is just part of the budget. There's no other

• 32:39Speaker 04

  way around that. I would be really cognizant about my housing cost. Wisconsin isn't necessarily the most, it's not an unaffordable state. I don't know if there's any other place that you'd be looking around America that housing's a little bit more affordable rent-wise. You may not want to do that, but you're just going to have to bake in that perennial line item that maybe takes away a little bit of the discretionary things you want to do, but it still seems like you're on really solid footing to be able to afford once you stop working.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  Terrified in Washington says, I'm 63 and my husband's 80. He is a Vietnam veteran, thank him for his service, 80% VA disabled and has dementia. I'm terrified about what his future care could mean for my own retirement. We came from a high-control religion that discouraged saving for the future, but I've always been a saver. Today, we have a net worth of more than $1 million, including about $800,000 in cash, CDs, and annuities, plus a paid-off home. My biggest fear is that my husband may eventually need nursing home care, which costs $12,000 to $15,000 a month in our area. The VA may cover some or all of his care because of his disability, but I don't know that I can count on it. I'm

• 33:57Speaker 03

  still working largely because I'm scared of spending down everything we've saved and then not having enough left for my own future. At the same time, I'm 63, my body's wearing out, and I don't know how much longer I want or I'm able to work. I also know investing more heavily in the stock market might be suggested, but emotionally, I'm not comfortable doing that. Am I financially secure enough to stop working? And is it selfish to want to protect some of our savings from my own retirement while still making sure my husband gets the care he needs?

• 34:27Speaker 04

  Terrified in Washington, no. You got to be able to take care of you as well. And

• 34:33Speaker 03

  I was going to say, I'm so sorry about this situation.

• 34:36Speaker 04

  It's a really, really hard, really hard situation. First of all, not all is lost. You absolutely can end up okay here, but the biggest problem you have, and first of all, the VA is not going to help because it may help, but the VA payments per month, even at a high disability-

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, but the VA healthcare, they should take care of it. They should help take care of them. My goodness, that would be-

• 34:59Speaker 04

  The amounts that they, unless you're, again, and I don't know the exact particulars around Washington State, unless, in a, in a non-VA facility, 12 to, Washington State is the most expensive state in the nation. It's brutal.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  You know, who can afford 15K a month?

• 35:21Speaker 03

  That's, yeah.

• 35:23Speaker 04

  It's brutal. And for those kinds of facilities, they're not going to get covered by VA. Now, maybe there's a VA-only facility. I just don't know if that's where you want your husband. That's going to be a family choice for you, really. It's a hard one.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  Definitely sit down with someone at the VA and look at what the options are now, for sure.

• 35:42Speaker 04

  You've got to, but it's not going to help all that much covering 12 to 15K for a normal, nice facility in Washington. I've been to Washington and some of these, they're, they're nice, but for a variety of reasons, it's extraordinarily unaffordable. So you do have some real assets. So I would do a couple of things. Krista, that's a must to go talk to VA and see what they can do. I don't know if that's going to be your answer. Another answer, which again, is a big lift, is to find a more affordable state. Now, at 80, you may not, your husband, it may not be feasible to move. You're only 63. You

• 36:25Speaker 04

  could move. Oklahoma and Texas and Missouri and a lot of states in the United States, it's more like five to six to seven K a month for the same kind of care. That's a major difference. So you've got a 17-year age gap, and you are in the most expensive state in the nation, probably in the world, when it comes to healthcare. So I would consider moving. I would meet with VA, consider moving, and stay away from the stock market right out of the gate. If you're uncomfortable with it, the last thing you want to do here is think, oh, I can maybe get 10% returns if I all of a sudden invest my money in a more

• 37:08Speaker 04

  aggressive way, but you may need the money right now. So your time horizon's short. So that doesn't really work anyway. Most importantly, you're not comfortable with it. The good news is, interest rates are in the 4% to 5% range, so you should be able to get 4% to 5% in interest with a super conservative portfolio that'll, that should be able to give you income. Now, you're not going to get a lot, you're not going to really get any growth from that, but 4% to 5% in interest payments on a million bucks, that's $40,000, $50,000 a year. That's super helpful. And I know you're still working, but to your point, at some point, you've got to be able to stop as well, and you're a caretaker. So be cautious about getting too

• 37:52Speaker 04

  aggressive on the investment front. Talk to VA, and as big of a lift as it might sound, it may be time to look at other areas in the nation that don't have crazy high assisted living costs.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  I wish her the best of luck, and I certainly hope the VA can step up since your husband is a Vietnam vet.

• 38:14Speaker 04

  Is a vet.

• 38:15Speaker 03

  Denny in Florida says, this borders on a smelly west stinks like the trash bin question. You know, we do, if you don't know, we do our weekly Clark stinks.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  Danny.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  Denny. We do a weekly Clark stinks segment on Fridays on, on Clark's show, where people write in when they disagree with him. In your list of driving factors for when to start taking social security, you failed to mention the expected deficit spending date for the OASI trust fund, 2032-ish. There will almost certainly, in my mind, be a decrease in benefits coming down the road. Taking social security now at the existing payout levels should certainly be one of your driving factors. Thanks for all the great insights and keep the great content coming.

• 38:56Speaker 04

  Hey, Denny, I love that this is technically a west stinks. That's true. I do.

• 39:04Speaker 04

  I don't have all the answers, but I will say this, and this is an emotional topic for a lot of people, and that's important. It's our social security. We paid into it forever. Then we expect to get a check forever, and it's supposed to go up with inflation, not down. And the last thing we want is that reservoir right now that has a bunch of cushion in it is continuing to be deflated every single year to the point in 2032, projection, it's going to be in deficit. Doesn't mean the social security payments will go away, but technically the math would only support 78% of what people are getting today. So

• 39:45Speaker 04

  it's a 22% haircut that is projected. So let's call it 20 to 25% haircut. It is something that everybody should consider. We need to know about it. I mean, when you get your social security statement, it's like the first thing they say on there. They've been warning us about this forever, for 20 years they've been warning. But it is such a big deal, Denny, that as much as I think mathematically, people would need to take a haircut, there's no way IMO, in my opinion, in my mind, that anybody receiving social will get any haircut whatsoever. No way. I think about the emotional reaction people

• 40:28Speaker 04

  have to getting that check, and you multiply that by 60, I don't know how many people get social, 70 million people. Imagine the uprising. Literally, I could see not just politically and people voting with their wallets, but literally the uprising of people if people's social security checks are cut. I just don't think that, I mean, Congress is nervous to do anything that takes money away from the American people, let alone cut their social security check. You kidding me? So what are they going to do? They're going to take it from the next generation. And they're going to, the math, the levers are, again, it's still hard to do, but it's a lot easier to take money away from people

• 41:13Speaker 04

  who aren't already getting it. So if you're 55, is your future payment going to be maybe somewhat less? Sure. If you're 45, probably absolutely. But they're going to pull some of those other levers. They're going to say, you know, you can't take social until 63 instead. They're going to up the social security wage base max, so that we pay more FICA taxes, pay in more on more income. They could raise the FICA tax, take it from where it is and inch it up by a half a percent, maybe a full percent. But those are all levers that are mathematically, I think, more palatable for the American population than actually cutting

• 41:57Speaker 04

  someone's check from 2K a year, a month, down to 1,500 bucks. No way. Not happening, in my opinion. But it depends on how old you are. If you're in your early 60s, I think it absolutely could be a deciding factor to say, go ahead and start taking it, because I don't think they're going to cut it once you, once you start taking it.

• 42:19Speaker 03

  All right. That is going to do it for us for this week's Ask an Advisor. I hope that you enjoyed this episode, and that if you did, you'll share it with someone you know. Please subscribe wherever you listen or watch this podcast, and then give us a review if you happen to be on Apple Podcasts. It really helps us. And Spotify, I know you can review as well. So anywhere you can review, we greatly appreciate it. Thank you for being with us and hope you have a great rest of your day. Clark is back tomorrow with a brand new episode.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 43:05Speaker 02

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 43:08Speaker 07

  Modafinil was invented in the 1970s and has been used by the highest performers on and off the planet. Soldiers, pilots, and even astronauts aboard the ISS use modafinil in high-stakes situations where full concentration and alertness are paramount. And it's now available in liquid form to qualified patients at mod.com. Visit mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order plus free shipping with promo code spotify at mod.com.