How Much Of Gross Income Should Go To Retirement?

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How much gross income should go into retirement when you plan for retirement?

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Hi there, my name is Stan the Annuity Man, America's annuity agent, licensed in all 50

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states and Puerto Rico, top agent in the country, and the pioneer of contractual

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guarantees-only approach to owning annuities. So, we're going to look at this gross income keyword,

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gross. I'm going to go through it, give you my opinion, which is fact.

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Well, it's opinion, but it also can be converted into fact after this.

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So, how much gross income should go towards retirement? Great question. And I think just a

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knee-jerk. Answer would be as much as possible. You know, retirement gets to you quicker than

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you think. I call it chapter 2. And if you're working out there, you have some type of what's

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called accumulation plan. 401(k), 403(b), 457, Simple IRA, SEP IRA, whatever. Something you're putting

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away as you're working. Hopefully, you're getting matched by your employer, and it's growing,

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growing, growing. Hopefully growing during that time period. You probably shouldn't be looking

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at annuities. These annuities should really be looked at when you're kind of rounding the curve,

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coming home on a three-lap out of four-lap race. So you're at lap three coming home. You should

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start looking at annuities for our lifetime income stream or principal protection. Say in your 50s,

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you know, there are exceptions for younger, but you'd have to run that past me. You can send

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me an email [email protected]. But gross income is what you are getting deducted from

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your paycheck that you can afford to put away. Most people in my world, in the financial world,

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I've been doing this a long time. Before I was with Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter,

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PaineWebber, UBS, and now I'm Stan the Annuity Man, top agent out here in the

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fixed world. As much as you can put away without affecting your lifestyle. The one thing that,

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the one mistake I do see a lot with people is they live like paupers. They live like they're poor

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even though they don't have to live like they're poor. Okay? I'm just not a big proponent of safe,

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safe, safe. It's like the movie Braveheart where the British are coming and you hold, hold.

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That's not your retirement. Okay? I'd rather you find a nice mix of the amount of money you can

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put away and the amount of money that you plan on spending as you're headed toward retirement. Okay?

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There's no perfect answer to this. It all comes down to your lifestyle,

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how much debt you want to carry. There's a lot of people out there go, "I don't want any debt

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at all." I'm one of those people. I don't want any debt at all. Well, then you have to adjust

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things a little bit differently, right? Because if you don't have any debt going into retirement

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or chapter 2 of your life, that's a little bit of a game changer as well. But what I would

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encourage you to do is put money away within your plan that you're in. Whatever that is.

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Again, 401(k), 457, 403(b), SEP, Simple, whatever that deferred growth structure

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is for retirement. Put as much money as you can away without affecting your lifestyle.

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I'm the only one that's going to add that last part because I've just been doing this for so

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long that I've seen people try to wait and wait and, as Braveheart said, "Hold, hold,

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hold." Well, you know, if I can just wait for five more years, we're going to get to

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this and then we're going to enjoy it. Well, guess what? They never get to the five years,

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or year three, they have an episode or an event, and they're sick and they can't enjoy the money.

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What I'm going to tell you is try to find that balance of gross income that you can put away.

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Now, for the people out there that are already retired, I would tell you to put down in writing

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what I call your income floor. Your income floor is Social Security, the annuity you already own,

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required minimum distributions from your IRA if you're that age, a pension if you're so fortunate,

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only 9% of the people out there have it, dividend stocks, dividend income, rental income, whatever

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that money is coming in. And then be honest with yourself and have your spouse remind you of what

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really is needed there. Do you need more? Do you want to buy an RV? Do you want to

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travel more? Do you want to eat better? Do you want to fly first class because your kids will?

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They will. Come up with that number, and then if there's a gap, let's say the number is

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$5,000 and you need 6,250, then we can reverse engineer an immediate annuity quote to solve for

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that 1,250 using the least amount of money with the highest-rated carrier. So income floor is

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really what I want most of you out there that are looking at from a retirement standpoint.

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If you're young, I'm going to encourage you, and the annuity industry is probably going to get mad

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at me, if you're young, if you're like pre-50 and you're looking for retirement and you're saying,

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"How much should I put away?" As much as humanly possible. But if that plan offers an annuity

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inside of it, do not buy that. Do not buy that. Do not buy that. Keep your money in pure growth

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products. Do not buy an annuity pre-50 in those plans. I know that they're going to pitch you.

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I'm telling you not to do that. Keep your powder dry, and then when you get close to retirement,

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you contact us. We'll run those quotes to solve for that contractual guarantee that you want to

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happen. But for the people that are already at chapter 2, okay, we need to look at the income

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floor. We need you to answer two questions: what do you want the money to contractually do? When

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do you want those contractual guarantees to start? And then from there, we're going to match you up

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with the structures that can contractually guarantee what you want to achieve. Okay?

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So, I guess drawing a line down, this is an interesting question. Draw this line down:

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50 and below, no annuities, please, unless you just have this weird situation you want

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to email me [email protected]. But for 99.9, 50 and below, growth, growth,

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growth, growth, growth. 50 and above, and people that are already retired,

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it's all about your income floor. It's all about lifestyle. It's all about now. It's

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all about chapter 2. It's all about enjoying your money while you can, while you're healthy,

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while you're still moving and you're still mobile. Okay? So, those two.

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So, if you're young, great. You know, talk to you in a while. Talk to you down the road. Hopefully,

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I'm alive, you know? But there's a great story to that. Someone asked me the other day,

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said, "Stan the Annuity Man, America's annuity agent, licensed in all 50 states and Puerto

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Rico." I said, "Yeah, what do you want?" He goes, "What happens when you die?" And I said, "Well,

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there's gonna be a lot of crying eyes, baby. I'm telling you right now." And there'll be

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a rock band playing really heavy, loud, like Marshall stacks. There's a long story behind

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that. There'll be poetry. And then the day after, everyone will be happy, etc. But I do have a plan

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in place. I call it the JimmyDean sausage annuity plan. Now, people say, "What? Wait a minute,

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Stan? You're talking about JimmyDean sausage? Like JimmyDean, like breakfast sandwich

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sausage?" Yeah. Yeah. JimmyDean sausage. I'm from the South. What does that have to do with

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annuities? A lot. Because JimmyDean's been dead for like 10, 15 years, but they still sell a

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crapload of sausage, if you know what I mean. Okay? Can I get an annuity amen on that one?

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I am setting this up so that, in perpetuity, just to drive my daughters crazy to see the ongoing

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videos. No, they'll love it because they'll make a lot of money. But I'm setting it up so

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that there's a continuation plan when my Learjet that's rented hits the mountain and goes poof,

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that the brand that's in place, the contractual guarantees-only message is in place, it's going

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to endure forever. And one of the reasons I'm doing all these videos, as many as I can,

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is so that we can get as much quality content out there as we can, as long as I'm breathing,

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as long as I'm enjoying it. Which kind of leads me back to what we just talked about,

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which is if you can enjoy the money, I want you to enjoy the money now. I want you to figure out

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how to do that. Just don't be Braveheart in retirement, hold, hold, hold. If you haven't

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watched that, go watch that. Don't be that person. Be the person that you're implementing

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it now. You're not trying to time it like a market time. You're not trying to time it. Don't be a

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retirement timer. That's a good one. See, behind the camera. Don't be a retirement timer. Okay?

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Do me a favor. Above my head, spinning clock, there is a video I did specifically on why I'm the

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pioneer in contractual guarantees-only approach to annuities and why that should be important to

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you and why you should use that when considering annuities. Don't buy the dream being sold because

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you're going to own the contractual realities, and the contractual realities are good, but don't

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be swayed by shiny things, as they say. Okay? My name is Stan the Annuity Man. See you next time.