Podcast Episode - Ask KT & Suze Anything: Should We Buy or Rent?

On this episode of Ask KT & Suze Anything, Suze answers your questions about the "Must Have Docs", stocks in trusts, investments, dental savings plans and more.

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Podcast Transcript:

Suze: November 30th 2023. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast as well as everybody smart enough to listen, Suze O and

KT: KT is here...

Suze: in the house. It's been, I feel like it's been so long...

KT: For me? It was because we had Robert do our Thanksgiving because we were fishing, fishing. Are we going to do the big reveal? The big reveal...

Suze: Before we tell all of you the results of the Wahoo tournament? This is the Ask KT and Suze Anything podcast. This is where you write in to ask Suze - SUZE podcast at gmail.com. You write in your question and if Miss Travis happens to pick it, we will answer it this podcast. All right. Take it away. KT.

KT: So the big reveal, we go out on the tournament day, it is a brutal day in terms of the number of boats out there competing, huge, huge, big Vikings, big fishing yachts. We're in our little whaler and we're going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. No one, no one is catching all of a sudden. We look and the big boys are gone. They went way south 100 miles almost to Cuba. I mean, way south...

Suze: Which they were able to do because they have so many engines on there.

KT: No, they're big, big, big yachts. We have a little boat. They go way, way south. They're out of sight, but we're still going back and forth, passing all our friends waving and everyone's putting their fingers up. Zero. We caught nothing. Finally, finally, Suze and I almost like maybe after four or five hours in of nonstop fishing, we finally catch a wahoo and this was the first of the season. So we're just elated that we caught our first fish of the season when we brought it on board. We didn't even have to Gaff the fish. It was so tiny and so small, we looked at each other and by the way, you can't really catch and release wahoo because you've already, you know, it's already spent. So you have to bring it in and actually consume it. But this fish was only 13 pounds. All right. Everybody imagine that. So here we go to the, we're the weigh in and, and all the boats are coming in slowly and everyone,

Suze: And everybody up till this point thought we had won the tournament

KT: because we caught a fish and no one else is catching all of a sudden the big boys are returning. The big ones that went way, way, way south. They're returning and we go down to and, and everyone's saying no one caught this, no one caught that so many of our great fishermen friends caught nothing. We go to the weigh in and they're on the scale

KT: is the biggest Wahoo I ever saw in my life.

Suze: 68 pounds.

KT: Suze has to post a photo on our women and money um app because you on the wall, you've got to see what this looks like. Then she'll post the photo next to it of us with our winning.

Suze: The bottom line is we didn't win, but we did win because we had the best time, best time ever.

Suze: All right. But we will try again.

KT: Go look at the photos and get a giggle. All you have to look hard to find our...

Suze: The biggest one, by the way we've ever caught was a 60 pound. So I can't imagine pulling in a 68 pound. It was huge. But you will see. Ok.

KT: So the first question I have is from Jen W she wrote help. Please read this KT. So I'm gonna read it, Jen.

KT: Hi, Suze. I've listened to your podcast over the years and finally decided to buy the must have documents. My husband and I have a will that was made by a lawyer years ago.

KT: We know we need to have a trust. So we've been married for 20 years. My husband has kids from his previous marriage, but they're older now and we don't have any Children together. My question is, do we have to purchase two? Must have document kits or can we both use this one?

KT: I've not activated the code yet because I wasn't sure if we can both use the same code. Now, the reason I chose this is that you've all heard the must have documents over and over again, but it took gen w all these years to finally get it. And I think this is an important way to start your new year for those of you that don't have it. So, Suze's gonna explain

KT: that one code will do a great deal of good.

Suze: Yeah. So one thing that you all have to understand and you need to understand Jen, all you have to do is purchase one and then you can share it with as many people as you want. So the activation code that you have, you can use it for yourself. You will then personalize it by setting it up to the email you want and your own password. Then you will give it to your husband. He will do the same thing with his email that he wants and his passcode, you won't be able to see each other's unless you voluntarily show it to each other.

Suze: But you can do that with as many people as you.

KT: So, Suze, wait tell everyone that didn't get the must have docs yet. Where to go. Well, it's a great way to start the New Year. Nice and secure. Yeah.

Suze: The, the best way for you to do it is go to the URL musthavedocs.com D-O-C-S must have docs.com and there is where you would get them. It's $2500 worth of state of the art documents. I believe it's for $99 right now can share it with anybody. And when you go there, you will see my picture and a video. I'm the educator of this product. So you go there, I educate you on what you need to know and then you decide what you want to do from there. But hopefully you will decide to partake in them. Next question, KT.

KT: Again, everyone listen to this. She said this is from Pam. She said, KT pick me.

Suze: Oh, is that what you're doing this? You're looking for everybody. KT pick me.

KT: So, Suze, how does it work when our mom passes and has stocks that need to be sold and then transferred to the three siblings in the family trust.

KT: So they're saying we're still waiting on Ira and Roth Ira to be settled with the bank for us to get access to money from the trust. Can you please give some information on how this usually works? Dealing with this bank is not fun. Thank you, Pam.

Suze: Now, I have a feeling in this particular situation, Pam that the trust that your mom set up, she made this bank, whatever bank it is the trustee of that trust. And what happens when that happens is that they get paid a fee to do all of that work and the longer they do that work for, the more money they make. Now, I don't know if that is your situation or not, but it's important that when you do have the must have docs or you're naming somebody rather than naming a bank to take care of everything. One of you personally should be named a kid or a spouse or whatever it may be, whoever that person would trust to carry out the instructions of the trust. It should not take this long, it should be done really in a matter of weeks, believe it or not.

Suze: So you need to stay on this bank, call them five times a day, hassle them, do whatever you can and get this to happen. Yeah. Ok.

KT: Next one, this is from Laura and she said, don't let me down KT here we go. Now you all know the key to, don't let me down to pick this. She said I need to knock some sense into my brother. I love that first one.

KT: I can relate to that. So we're twins, age 37 but I'm a twin too, but I have a great twin sister. We're identical. Obviously, you're fraternal. So she said he is single, no dependents, financially stable and owns his own home. He has no mortgage. His tax guy helped to set up a Roth Ira for him years ago. But its investment options are slim when he told me what he's invested in. I nearly fainted. I did my best to talk him into a Roth Ira with fidelity where the investment options are bountiful. He just won't listen to me. Maybe, maybe Suze, he'll listen to you or both of you. Can you provide me with a persuasive argument as to why? What he is doing is not why...

Suze: Does he tell you what he is actually doing?

Suze: Well, read that to me.

KT: Ok. He recently arranged the following $110 a month into the growth fund of America and $110 a month into class A 2040 bonds.

Suze: First of all, what all of you, forget your brother for a second here, Lauren, right. What all of you have to understand is that today you are able to make purchases of ETFs A mutual funds, of all kinds of things without having to pay a commission.

Suze: Those are called no load funds and, or exchange traded funds where you're purchasing at a Fidelity for instance, and there's no charge to buy or sell.

Suze: The fact that your brother's tax person also helped him set up this account and they set it up into two things that he bought that have a 4 to 5 or possibly 6% commission on.

Suze: Tells me that somehow the tax person is also making money off of what your brother buys. Number one. Number two, the good news is he's only putting 100 and $10 a month into these things. He could be putting $500 a month into it. 600 depending whatever it is that he's actually doing. But Growth fund of America happens to be a fabulous mutual fund.

Suze: The problem is, in my opinion, it is a loaded mutual fund where you pay a load or a commission and there are other mutual funds that are equally as good that don't do that. The class 80 2040 bonds, whenever you see the letter A, that means there is a load on it. You never ever, ever, in my opinion, want a mutual fund that has an A or a B on it. Got it. You want no load funds. So your brother is absolutely making a mistake. However, here's the truth, Lauren, they can't be doing that bad because he's single. He doesn't have dependents, he's financially stable according to you and he owns his own home, no mortgage outright. So he's got to be doing something right. The question is, do you own your home outright? Are you financially stable? So he may feel that he doesn't need any advice from his twin sister.

Suze: So let him do what he wants. He wants to continue to make mistakes. Ok. He'll still make money. He just won't make as much money as he could as you or as you. So, in the meantime, let it go. Don't worry about it.

Suze: Don't give him advice because if you give him advice and it goes wrong, you'll pay for it. Trust me, just live your life and you make the right decisions and let him do what he wants because he has the decision to do that. Just that simple. He's not making grave errors, but he is making in my opinion, a silly one. All right.

KT: Ok. This next question is from Christine and, and I think Suze, you need to address a couple of things here. But basically what happened was Christine said she hit rock bottom. She needs to know the best way to move fast from here to correct a 580 credit score and she feels that she had, she was misled with a bankruptcy lawyer that told her to file.

KT: And since that she said my life is worse than ever. I'm wondering how to fix this nightmare that will now follow me for 10 years. I'm 54. I own my own home, four years away from paying it off auto loan ends in April. I cannot refinance or get a loan or credit to save my soul. She filed, haven't owned charge cards in four years help.

Suze: So here's what I would tell you, Christine, you gotta change your attitude on this. You gotta change how you're thinking about this girlfriend. You have this so wrong. I can't even tell you. I don't care what your credit score is. I don't care that you can't get credit cards. I care about that. You're 54 and you're gonna own your own home in four years from now. Who's gonna be 58 and owns their own home outright today? Who everybody listening. what do you think of that? Would you like to own your own home outright at 58? But Christine doesn't appreciate how much that means she has a car loan that ends in April. April is just a few months from now. So why does she need to refinance a loan? Why does she need to do any of that? Why Christine, you have a car, you're gonna keep the car, you have a home, you're gonna keep the home. You are not gonna take money out of the home as a home equity line of credit, which possibly you could have done if you had a high FICO score. I don't care again that you can't get credit to save your soul. Good. Go on a cash basis. It's just that simple. So over time, everything will improve financially in terms of your credit.

Suze: But the truth of the matter is you say you haven't owned charge cards in four years. Good. I hope you don't own them for another four years for forever. You don't need them go cash. That's how it is. And it's just that simple. And if you need to use a credit card, fine, either get yourself a debit card or get yourself a secured credit card. But if I were you and you already claim bankruptcy. Fabulous. Because you're not gonna claim it again.

Suze: All right. KT, did you know that most people who claim bankruptcy once, claim it twice? So claim bankruptcy, you get rid of everything and then you feel free and you make the same mistakes again. Christine is in a situation where the fact that she did it, she can't get herself in trouble again. It's her thoughts that are going to do her in next question. KT

KT: OK. From Larissa.

KT: Hi, Suze. Thank you for laying the ground rules for us. Having your advice at my fingertips takes so much of the stress away. Now, this is interesting. Listen to the, the year ready. I've recently found myself helping my 80 year old parents with their retirement money. My question is you say this market is the time to hold their stock. So they have time to bounce back.

KT: I understand that they should take the RMD from their bond holdings. But when and how often should their stock or bond allocations be rebalanced? My parents are scared that they'll be losing so much. I'd like to help them feel they're doing their best. So at 80 years old, how do you advise Larissa.

Suze: Yeah. So to keep them calm, here's the thing, everybody, when you have money in a retirement account, a traditional retirement account, a pre-tax one, not a Roth retirement account, because in a Roth retirement account, which is after tax, you don't need to take required minimum distributions. Once you attain a certain age, currently, that age is 73 in the next few years, it's going to go to 75 but there will come a time when you do have money in a traditional retirement account, meaning pre-tax and you have to start taking required minimum distributions out. So you can take them out however you want, you can take them out monthly, you can take them out once a year, you can do it every six months. You can do it in any amount of money that you want. You just have to take out whatever that amount needs to be in one year, you have to withdraw it. Otherwise there is a penalty. Now, the penalty used to be 50%. Now it's gone down to 25%. And if you do certain things, it can just be 10%. So it's not as big of a deal as it used to be. Got that everybody. 

Suze: However, do you take it from stocks or do you take it from bonds? Now, that interest rates have started to go down again? I would at this point let the bonds bounce back because probably your bonds took a bigger loss over the past few years, believe it or not, than your stocks. Because when interest rates go up, which they did over all these years, the value of bonds go down now that interest rates are going down, let those bonds increase in terms of stocks. What you should be looking at is, do you take the money that's in stocks? And do you purchase with it because it's in a retirement account? So you don't have to worry about a capital gains tax. Do you purchase stocks today that are paying you a great dividend yield, a yield of 5% 6% whatever it may be. And between the bond portfolio and the stock portfolio invested in dividends, does that give you enough income to meet the required minimum distribution so that you don't really have to sell anything? So those are the types of things that you need to look at.

Suze: So you might want to sit down truthfully with a financial advisor, tell them exactly the situation and hopefully that financial advisor can figure it out for you. I wish I could do that for you, but I don't know enough about your particular situation and that's not exactly what I do anymore, but that's something that you should be looking at.

Suze: I do it for you and me, KT.

KT: This next question I chose because many of you don't know this. But Susie has been advising military families for decades and it's something she does pro bono and does it with great joy we give back to the country. So this topic, buy versus rent is something we've heard over and over and over again from military families. And here's the question,

KT: Dear, Suze. We hope this email finds you. Well, we currently live in Germany. We're here on my wife's military orders. We'll be moving stateside in August 2024.

KT: The big question is, do we rent or buy a home for our next location which is in Portsmouth, Virginia and we'll be there for at least three years.

Suze: You absolutely rent. Don't even have to hear anything else. Right. This is not the time to be buying a house. I don't care how much money they have to put down. I don't care anything like that.

Suze: In my opinion, the value of homes very well in many places may start to come down. I don't care what all the other pundits say. There is more and more of a waiting time when somebody puts their house on the market, there is more inventory happening. I get the mortgage interest rates are starting to come down as well. You know, you can do a 30 year mortgage right now for about 7.4%.

Suze: So it has sparked more interest, but we're still down 19% from a year ago of mortgage applications. Three years is not enough. If you told me this is where you were gonna move forever. Maybe I would say something differently you are to rent, period. Next question, KT

KT: Suze, the next question I have was posted on the Women and Money Wall. It's from Haven Hollow.

KT: Your podcast as usual was very inspiring. But we're hoping to hear some of your sage specific financial guidance. What in your opinion should we be doing now? Shorter term clarity has the higher rates. The market is raging up while treasury's rates are dropping. Should we be locking in the 30 year rate as it drops? At least for now.

Suze: Stop, stop, stop. Right. I get what this person Haven Hollow is saying. Haven. Here's what you need to understand.

KT: Wait, we don't know if the name's...

Suze: well, whatever her name is, whoever you are. Haven Hollow, which is, if you had listened carefully to the podcast over the past few months, you would have heard exactly what I had wanted you to do.

Suze: You would have heard exactly that I said interest rates on treasuries were going to start to come down. You would have heard exactly the stocks that I liked. If you had listened to me on CNBC, you would have heard exactly the stocks that I wanted everybody to buy picks and they're up anywhere from 15 to 30% in a month. All right. So you have to stay tuned.

Suze: You can't just pick and choose which podcast you wanna listen to. You have to listen to them all seriously because you never know when I am going to say something. So on Sunday, I will go over it, but I will on Sunday also reiterate why I think it is incredibly important that you take advantage of the 18 month certificate of deposit at Alliant Credit Union paying either 5.3% or 5.35%. Take a look, everybody at what two year treasuries are paying right now.

Suze: They are at approximately 4.6%. Are you kidding me? So remember with an 18 month CD at Alliant, you can lock it in for 23 months, you can do it 18 months, 19 months, 20 months, whatever you want up to 23 months. So now we're comparing apples and apples and I'll talk more about that on Sunday. But I told you interest rates I thought were going to start to come down.

Suze: So I told you to start dipping your toes into the 30 year treasury. Now, if you had, you would be up five or 6% on them already, but I'll go into it a little more on Sunday.

Suze: But it's true, KT, I know I may sound stern but I have answered all of these things that Haven Hollow is talking about. They just must not have listened to them and not everything, not everything needs updating constantly. If I'm gonna change it advice, then I'll change it. If I'm not changing my advice, why repeat it. All right. Next question, KT.

KT: Suze. Instead of doing a quizzy today, these are such great questions and they're very, very current and relevant. So forget the quizzy everybody. Let's just get some good advice in, in our little heads.

KT: This is from FC.

KT: Is it true that maximum contributions are going up for the 401k TSP 403 B, et cetera in 2024. If so, Suze, to what amounts is that a good thing?

Suze: It's a great thing. It's a great thing.

Suze: Yes, they're going up again. I will address this on Sunday in great detail on Suze's school. Everything that has changed looks like it's going up substantially, which is great. That's good. All right. Go on.

KT: All right, next question, Suze. I know you're a big fan of dental saving plans and you also use them. So my big question and, and this is coming up a lot because of all of the um Medicare enrollment time of the year. It said, can I use a dental savings plan alongside my original Medicare plan?

Suze: So not only can you, but you should, for those of you who don't know, a dental savings plan is usually offered by all of the companies, by the way, that also offer dental insurance, but there is no waiting time. It is far less expensive. You can save anywhere from 10 to 60% on dental procedures. It is fabulous. If I were you, I would go to dental plans.com and take a look at it. Now you will see my picture there because for years and years I've been an advocate of dental savings plans. I have one. It has saved me thousands of dollars this year and I think it cost me and KT $180 a year, I think.

Suze: No, I think it's maybe, but the two of us and it's something that every single one of you should check out and use. Even if you have Medicare and Medicare advantage with dental. Go on. KT.

KT: Next question, Suze. Huge fan for years. But I need a favor. I need you to tell me what to do in January 2021. I made a decision that I would take $2000 a year and every first week in January and July, I would put 1000 into ARKK and that's ARK. That's a ETF that I loved and still do. And my Roth Ira as of now, I've invested $6000 and I own 100 and three shares of ARK worth about 5000. Here's the question.

KT: Should I continue putting 1000 every six months into it or sell it or just keep it? But Suze, I do not need this money right now. What should I do?

Suze: That's a quizzy. What should she do? What do you think?

KT: Just keep going, keep going, keep investing. Absolutely. But I don't know how old it...

Suze: Doesn't matter.

KT: Just keep doing it. Listen, everybody wait, did I? Is it right?

Suze: It is. Right. Ding, ding, ding. But you don't know why it was? Right. So, I don't know how good that is, but here's what you need to understand when, whose name is this? It doesn't have no name. So sometimes people writing, go no name. Anyway, here's what all of you who happen to purchase ARK, that's the Ark Innovation Fund again. Symbol is a ARKK a few years ago about in 2021. When this person started to buy ARKK, it was the number one ETF out there, it had gone up to like 100 and $50 a share, which is, I'm sure where this person, if they started in January 2021 that's how much they paid in January of 2021. But as time went on this fund went seriously out of favor and it actually went all the way down to $30 a share. Ok.

Suze: Now, however, and remember this person is putting in $1000 every six months. So now Arc is right around 4849 $50 a share. Again. Now, this person has 100 and three shares and they have about $5000. So that's why dollar cost averaging by the way is so important if she had just put in all $6000 at 100 $50 a share.

Suze: Good luck recouping that. All right. But on the Women and Money podcast, I have said to all of you, if you are going to invest, you have to do it over time. That's called dollar cost averaging. Ok. But what should she do now if you look at ARKK, believe it or not, it is making a comeback. I wouldn't be surprised if it just stays around here for right now and consolidates, but it's absolutely turning around and it's looking like it's going up for a long time. It's next resistance level

Suze: and you all know what I mean by that. If not listen to a past podcast is 54. So it should easily over the next whatever time make it to 54. If it breaks it through 54 it could just go on and on. But if it makes it 254 you'll be at $5400. If it

Suze: keeps going eventually, you'll be at 6000 and you will start to make a profit. You have stuck with it this far now is not the time to get rid of it. However, I will not continue to dollar cost average into it because if you do as it goes up, you pay more for it. Hey, if it goes back down again, maybe you can do that, but I would just leave it for now and go into other things. All right, Miss Travis. How is that?

KT: That was good. That's a whole lot of advice everybody. So you might listen to this one twice.

Suze: Oh, and we'll let this one go a little bit longer than normal. Only because why we took up a lot of time with the tournament facts and figures...

KT: Go look at that winning fish

Suze: And I will post that today. And until Sunday, when I will be reiterating what I think is happening with interest rates, why all of you should absolutely be purchasing the 18 month certificate of deposit with Alliant Credit Union. You do that by the way, by going to my alliant.com  and I'll also be updating you on all the new figures for retirement accounts in terms of contribution levels as well as adjusted gross income levels if you qualify or not. So, KT what do we want to tell everybody

KT: We want to say today, Wherever I go, I will create a more peaceful, joyful and loving world.

Suze: And if you say that every single day, we promise you you will be unstoppable.