Transcript of Video
Jen: We have a certified financial planner. I think he might be the first one ever on this station. Joseph Falbo is joining us. Hi, Joseph.
Joseph Falbo: Hello. How are you?
Jen: Well, pretty good. You’re here to cheer us up for the holidays. Is the opinion of most people individually, “Yeah, I’m pretty well set financially. I’m okay,” and then we find out they aren’t or did they know they’re not in some cases?
Joseph Falbo: I think in some cases a lot of people know they’re not. I think they’re more or less putting their head in the sand and just hoping for the best. They have the hope strategy, hoping everything’s going to work out for them. Then when it comes down to, which is the major thing people are invest before, which is retirement, then they’re like, “Uh-oh. I better start planning on this.”
Jen: Yeah.
Mark: Why do you think people wait so long? Does it just catch up to them? You’re going, going, going. “Oh man, I’m 50.” I don’t understand.
Joseph Falbo: Yeah, 50’s the scary part. That’s where people start saying, “Oh, my God. I better start planning.” I think people wait so long because when it’s something you just don’t want to think about, so you procrastinate about it. We’re inundated with so much stuff. It’s overwhelming. It’s overwhelming. Top that off with the financial education in this country is not really that good. Most of the time there’s no system for it, so most of the time people are learning from their parents who learned from their grandparents who’ve learned from their parents and so forth and so on. It’s passed down, so we really don’t have any good financial education. They’ll just say, “I’ll worry about it later on.”
Jen:All right. Now you are a financial planner and of course you charge a fee obviously to use your services.
Joseph Falbo: Absolutely.
Jen: When do people normally get a financial planner? At what age? Mark mentioned the age of 50. Is it around there?
Joseph Falbo: I’d say I’d say about 50, 55, but I have people come in at 62. I have people come in at 60 years old, 65 years old and it’s their first time having a financial planner. It’s usually retirement. It’s been my experience retirement is the main. There is some people that come in for college planning, but most of the time it’s for retirement.
Jen: All right, so right now is the time where we’re getting up close to New Year’s Eve. Then we make our resolutions for the brand new year. A lot of people say, “Oh, next year I’m going to save some money,” but they don’t do it. What’s holding them back? Are they just not making the right moves, not saving correctly? What’s happening?
Joseph Falbo: I think people don’t start with the end in mind. People should define exactly what they want. If you talk about retirement, I wrote a book, Retirement Success and one of the things I talk about in there is defining what retirement success means to you, figuring out what that means. Actually sitting down, writing that out, figuring out what that is because once you start getting your goals in line and what you want to do, then it gives you the motivation because money is emotional. If you don’t have any goals or any reasons to do it, nothing compelling, then it’s got to be compelling goals. If you don’t have anything compelling you to do that to save more, like you just mentioned, which is the first step to retirement or any kind of save is to save, right? Spend less than you’re making. If you have no reason to do that, it’s hard to do.
Jen: Yeah, you’re right. Money is emotional because when I check my banking account I start to cry immediately. Oh, man. It goes on for hours.
Mark: Right.
Jen: If you’re going to hire a financial planner, just like getting a doctor or whatever, what should you be asking that person to make you feel comfortable
Joseph Falbo: That’s a great question. The main reason I wrote Retirement Success: Hiring Your Functional Retirement Advisor, which by the way, your listeners could download for free at retirementsuccessnj.com. That’s retirementsuccessnj, like new jersey, .com, where it goes through all the reasons you need an advisor. Then it tells you the five traits and characteristics and all questions to ask the advisor to make sure they’re putting your best interests before their own best interest.
Mark: All right. Hey, by the way, I got to tell you something. We have a little game on this show that we play of which host can get the most that’s a great question. You just put Ken over the top of the month.
Jen: Yes. Thanks.
Mark: Thanks. Thanks a lot, Joe.
Joseph Falbo: You’re welcome. Thank you very much.
Jen: All right. Thanks for joining us this morning.
Joseph Falbo: You got it. Bye-bye.