My man, Larry’s back. He’ll always be around and I love it. This series that we’re doing this time around is really important to all of us as planners. And that is telling about a client’s story that relates back to all of you. That way you can understand that whatever situation you’re in, you can relate to something and understand how important it is and why it’s important to hire a planner. So Larry, welcome

Larry Sprung, CFP®:
0:22

back. Yeah, thanks, Joy. Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure. And I love the idea behind this. I love the action that it’s portraying to the families that will be listening. So thank you for including me in this great project.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
0:36

Absolutely. So let’s dive into it. Let’s take your client’s story from, tip to tail. Let’s go beginning to not end, obviously, but beginning to where we’re sit today.

Larry Sprung, CFP®:
0:45

Yeah. We had talked about this a little bit and I want to highlight a family that we’ve been working with for about 10 years now. And essentially they were referred to us by another family that we had worked with for a very long time as well. And before I get into telling you their story, I will also tell you that we’re working with their kids now as well. So we’re always trying to work with the next generation and educate them as well, which I think is vitally important. It’s not just about. The people we’re working with today, it’s making sure that there’s that legacy factor in effect and that there’s some stewardship there as well. This family in particular, husband and wife, we were working with them for about 10 years or so. And when they came to us, they really had no sense of where they were financially, where they were on their path to retirement. You and I have spoken about this before. I think everybody has a different path. I’m not a big believer in retirement. I think it’s a little bit of an outdated idea, but at the same time, there are still people out there that want to, and that’s a goal for them. They want to retire, slow down and start quote unquote, enjoying life. I think you and I agree you should be enjoying it all along the way, but there’s this. Kind of sense that you have to wait till retirement to enjoy it. But we were working with them. We were on a glide, we, they came to us not knowing where they were on that continuum. And basically we started working with them and we got a full picture of where they were currently. Got a really good indication of where they wanted to be, and we started putting a plan together for them to see if what they, their expectations for quote unquote retirement were going to be feasible. Now, just to give you a little background around them, she is an accounting professional that works in a, an organization that does bookkeeping and books and records for. Charter schools and he is more or less in in a sales role and has been and was for the majority of his career with different sales organizations or different types of companies. so They did pretty well. They were putting money aside, but again, I think the big question mark for them was, which I think is a lot of people that come to us, right? They’ve done this good job. At least they think putting money away in these different pockets, right? They have money in the bank. They have money in their 401ks. They have money in their IRAs, but where they lack is how is this all going to come together for the day that I stopped working and need to turn it off in terms of. The the paycheck and create my own income stream. So they were unsure about a lot of that stuff. And that’s where the plan came into play. Essentially went through the planning process and the dichotomy here, which I think is common in a lot of families and not necessarily the same fashion that I’m going to describe, but the wife was super conservative. She would prefer to have all of her money in the bank, and he was super aggressive. And, I think we see that a lot of times, not necessarily in that same fashion. Sometimes the wife is very aggressive and the husband less so and more conservative. But a lot of times, the risk profiles don’t necessarily match up. So you have to go through an education process there with them both. And we started looking at all their assets and putting the plan together and devising what their goals and objectives were. And one interesting thing with this family, which we don’t see very often, is as we were going through the planning process, one of the variables that we all have to look at as planners is life expectancy. Because that’s a big variable, right? If somebody lives till… 95 versus 80, there’s a big difference in need there in what they’re going to need to create an income stream. So we usually have a conversation about their family history, is there longevity? And the interesting thing with this family is where we would normally default to the 90s. The husband was adamant about like 85 or even lower than that between 80 and 85 because he had a very poor family history. So one of, one of the funny things that we did along the way with him was we said, listen, here’s what we’re doing. We’re putting in our contact management system a year before your 80th birthday. And we’re so confident that you’re going to live past 80, that we’re going to throw you and your with your friends and your family, we’re going to throw you a birthday party on your 80th birthday. So that became an ongoing joke going forward. But when we went through the plan we did. Extrapolate through nineties as a just in case. And then we also showed him what it would look like if he went to 80 or 85, which was more in line, which like I was saying from the start, that’s not something we see. Usually people are wanting to and expecting to live longer than we’re expecting. So we like showing both sides, but in this case, it was a little unique in terms of. Hey, we wanted to see it on the shorter end and I think the important thing for us as planners is even if they believe that they’re not going to live into their 90s. I think it’s vitally important that we also make sure that the plan is somewhat feasible to work. Beyond the years that they expect because it never fails, right? Those families that expect to pass away in their eighties, they live till 100 and the people who want to live to 105 end up passing away at 80, unfortunately. So you want to make sure you’re at least cover. So I don’t know if you have any questions at this point or you want me to keep going. I

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
6:33

love it. I love it. We’re on it.

Larry Sprung, CFP®:
6:35

All right basically we did this planning over a 10 year period and, just like any planner would do, we were managing their assets, we were managing the plan different life events, kids getting married kids buying houses. We helped them navigate through that process as well, them and their family. And, unfortunately, one of the… Turns that took place throughout their planning process was about a year and a half prior, or I guess two years prior. I should take it back. We sat down once again because they were concerned. Hey, we’re 2 years out. We want to make sure this is still working, which we did every year, but they really wanted to do a little bit more of a deep dive because they were getting to that point where they were both going to retire in. February of I believe 21. That was the game plan. February 21, they were going to both retire roughly in the same period of time so that they can enjoy their time together. And we sat down a couple of years before that, before COVID. We re evaluated the plan. We went through all the updated numbers. We reconfirmed everything. And basically everything looked like we were going to be on target. So they felt comfortable and we felt comfortable with the planning we had done up until that point. Unfortunately, about 6 to 12 months prior to their retirement the husband had a massive stroke. And, it was a little, it was heartbreaking for us as advisors. We’ve grown very close with this family over the last 10 years. We’ve gotten to know them intimately. We’ve gotten to know their kids intimately and, keep in mind, we also had this whole thing where we were planning on throwing this 80th birthday. Which one of the things that came up when he had this stroke was they immediately said to us, I don’t know about that 80th birthday. And I said I think we’re still going to keep that on target and we’re keeping that on plan. So I think that the interesting thing here is. He had to undergo a lot of physical therapy, health care and the good news is today he’s probably between 80 and 90 percent of where he was prior to the stroke. But I think the most fulfilling thing as an advisor for us, and I think the best thing we can say for that family, was while they were going through this, we wanted to be involved and make sure that we were helping them in any way we could. And the wife, reached out to us and she said, listen, she goes, I cannot thank you guys enough. She goes, the reality is because of the planning we’ve done. And knowing that we have you on our team and you’re backing us up. I was able to concentrate on my husband’s care and his health. I did not have to worry about the money. I didn’t have to worry about if we were going to be able to survive, if he wasn’t able to work. We knew that we had that all covered. And the fact that I was just able to concentrate on his health, I really feel To get to a point where he’s 80 to 90 percent back to where he would be and myself, I feel very comfortable because I didn’t have a lot of the mental anguish that I would have had I not done the planning because it would have been a lot of other things I would have had to been concerned. And worried about, and as we speak today, we’re, we’re talking right now in I think this is going out in November. They’re in Croatia, I believe on a 2 week stint vacationing, and we still have that birthday on our horizon, and we’re very optimistic that we’re going to be able to throw that party for him and we’re hoping that we will be able to fulfill that goal That we had as a firm for them as a family, but I think the important thing here is you don’t want to wait, my takeaway is you don’t want to wait until you have that event because that would not have put her in a position of feeling comfortable. She would have been scrambling and it would have been very difficult and there would have been very little she could have done if she wasn’t on track. Whereas because the legwork was done up front, it became extremely helpful in terms of being able to understand that they were in good shape and that she could just concentrate on his care and well being. Bravo

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
11:10

to you. And I just got the chills. Like I have the chills from that story. And ultimately it’s because what we do isn’t about the numbers, right? The numbers are the numbers. Like you just said, if she came to you late, there’s nothing you could do. The reason you were able to do something is because of the years and years of planning. And I want to just, applaud you and your firm for that first and foremost. Second applaud them for taking that initial leap and saying, Hey, I don’t know. Where our stuff is, we feel disorganized. We need someone on our team to have our back. And the greatest thing about what I didn’t hear in that story was, I didn’t hear anything about your cost. I didn’t hear anything about how much assets they had or how much money was involved. And that to me was the most, one of the most important pieces, obviously what you did was, but it didn’t come down to that. It came down to a relationship. That was a trusted one over time, and a plan that changed Dip, Dive, and Duct for, a decade to get them to where they’re at, and then that major thing happened, and guess what, that plan supported it, you supported them, and, he’s back, and you are right, my wife’s a PT, so I understand PT a lot, having the ability to have the spouse be there to get them through it, probably improved his, rate of return, if you will, physically, that A good 20 percent

Larry Sprung, CFP®:
12:35

probably. The other thing I didn’t mention was their daughter is a physical therapist an occupational therapist. So she’s a she’s a traveling physical therapist. So she took some time off in between contracts, stayed at home and really pushed him to rehab, which again was very helpful for them to be able to do. And I think I. They got lucky in that regard, but it was tremendously helpful to his recovery as well. Oh, yeah. That’s

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
13:04

just simply amazing. I would say from the takeaway from this story that really should be noticed is the fact that it planning takes a long time. This isn’t a where you meet with us. We give you, a binder back in the day, a big old binder and says, here’s your plan and you’re good forever. Can you talk through over the decade? Kind of the things that Occurred or changed in the plan or what that year to year looks like?’cause I feel like a lot of people think once we get a plan, we set it and forget it. The planners just walk away. We move on to our next client. And it’s not that way. So can you talk us and walk us through

Larry Sprung, CFP®:
13:41

that? Yeah. There were a lot of things changed over the years, right? And rightfully i, I think that, going back to your analogy with the binder, that was something, and I think there’s still firms that do that. We don’t. Because our feeling is the minute we hand you that binder and you walk out our door, it’s outdated because something’s probably going to change in your financial life or your goals. But, some of the things that we worked on with them when they came to us, they had assets scattered all over the place. They had, multiple 401ks that hadn’t been consolidated. They didn’t even know what was in them, where they were. Basically consolidated, organized their life so that they understood where and what things were were doing. We put them on a path to make sure that their mortgage was going to be extinguished before they retired. So it was one less liability that they had to worry about. That was something that they ultimately wanted to do. Their goals and objectives, this kind of changed a little bit with the events that took place. They were planning on selling their house at some point and downsizing or perhaps renting out their current residents and downsizing somewhere else. Unfortunately, now he would have been the primary person to take care of that residence. So it’s really not an option. And at some point, they’re going to have to, they’re going to want to look at downsizing because the current house they’re in is too big for what their needs are. So that changed to there were job changes along the way where we worked with the husband to evaluate what the new compensation offer was going to look like versus the old one. If there were stock options involved, how does that impact his compensation and then in terms of her, earlier on, she wanted to retire earlier but it didn’t necessarily look like that was possible. And we helped them work through and evaluate that process. And I guess one other thing I would say is we also did a heavy evaluation with regard to when they should start collecting Social Security. That’s a big question mark. Especially with a husband and wife, in terms of when to start collecting, who would be beneficial if it benefits somebody to start earlier versus later. And we ran through all those scenarios and those break even points in terms of when it would be best to start collecting for each of them. And then I guess finally, also when they both turned 65, we helped them walk through the Medicare process, which for most people is, for everyone, it’s something you have to do but it’s miserable for most people, they don’t understand it. There’s so many different iterations and variations of what you can do. And we had a consultant come in and help walk them through that process. There were a lot of things along the way that we had conversations with and a lot of planning, and there’s still going to be more planning as we approach the the future as well. Absolutely.

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
16:43

So when they started with you, what was their age

Larry Sprung, CFP®:
16:46

ballpark? I would say in their early

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
16:49

sixties. Okay. And I wanted to bring that up for a couple of reasons. One, because there’s a lot of 60 year olds that are probably in the same boat, but if you listen to the story and you took out like retirement age or something like that, when we were speaking, it literally is any body in any walk of life. And I would say even more so when you’re younger because you have a lot more changes going on car buying home buying kids being born. There’s a lot of changes that go on and then you get your middle life. They’re still changes and then you get your sixties and now there’s even more. So I just wanted to let everyone know that just because this story started with a 60 year old, this should start way younger. Twenties thirties is when this really should start and having a planner over that course of time because you have. A lot of things in life that are going to come up that you just don’t know how to handle, what to do with it, or where it all

Larry Sprung, CFP®:
17:42

goes. Yeah, you have to think about this like a, if you’re going to hop on a sailboat or a ship and you’re going to sail around the world, right? That’s going to be a very arduous task. And that may be the equivalent of starting when you’re 20 years old and, making it around the world may get you to 80 or 90. You know that there’s going to be hiccups along the way. There’s going to be weather. There’s going to be current changes, there’s going to be things that are going to take you off course, it’s very similar to thinking about that same journey in a sailboat as your journey as you’re working career, your life, and hitting those different spots in life to get you there. The earlier you have. Somebody on your side who knows how to navigate those waters, so to speak, the better off you’re going to be because you’re going to have less hiccups. You’re going to have less impact and you’re going to be prevented from potentially making mistakes that you may be able to rebound from when you’re younger and you may not be able to rebound from when you’re older. So to your point, the earlier the better, and it’ll make that trip around the world that much smoother and easier and getting you to those points and destinations you want to get to. Like Captain

Stoy Hall, CFP®:
19:06

Larry just said, let’s set sail, start early and make sure someone’s on your side. So Captain, I appreciate it. I love the analogy and I’m going to steal that one. So thank you very much. And I look forward to getting you back on when that birthday party happens.

Larry Sprung, CFP®:
19:20

There you go. Hey, listen, I’m looking forward to it too. We it’s something that we We joke about he just got his birthday email a couple of, I think a couple of weeks ago and he sent me, he’s I’m looking forward to the 80th birthday party. We hope to stay true to that. Absolutely. Thank you.

Black Mammoth:
19:51

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