Are You Taking These 10 Smart Steps to Maximize Your Retirement Savings in 2025?

Podcast Announcer
00:00:00

In a world where crushing debt keeps you trapped, where living paycheck to paycheck has become your new normal, and where the dream of retirement seems impossibly out of reach, there's hope. Join financial evangelist Ralph Estep Jr. A man who's walked through the fire of financial failure and emerged stronger on the other side.

Welcome to Ask Ralph, the show where real world experience meets biblical truth to break the bondage of financial despair.

Get ready to take control of your money, break free from the financial stress and align your resources with God's purpose for your life. This is Ask Ralph with Ralph Estep Jr.

Ralph
00:00:40

Well, let me start by asking you this.

Have you ever felt behind on your retirement savings? Maybe you noticed that taxes aren't being withheld from your paychecks. You're grappling with estate planning decisions. Well, if you do any of those things, let me just tell you, you are not alone in that. And today, we're going to tackle those issues head on.
So stay tuned as we break down these complex topics, and I'm going to provide you with actionable steps to help you take control of your financial future. Imagine this. You're sitting down with a financial planner, revealing the secrets to boosting your retirement, boosting your savings, navigating tax withholding, and all of that while planning your estate effectively.

Today, you're going to learn how to make the most of your contributions. I'm going to show you how to minimize fees. I'm going to explain to you how to understand the tax implications. And all of that mended with leveraging biblical principles to guide your financial journey. And that's all what we're going to cover today.
So if you're ready to take control of your finances, buckle up. Remember, this is a live [00:01:00] show. So feel free to ask your questions or post comments in the chat. I'm here to help you. Well, thank you for joining me on today's live show. I'm thrilled to have you here as we explore these important topics together.
As you know, we moved it from 7 PM to 1 PM. So I'm hoping we see more people being able to get here. We got some comments from folks who thought it would be a better fit for them. So let's get started with our first question. We're going to go right to question number one. And this question comes to us.
Here's the question. It says, "Dear Ralph, I recently received notice that my W2 for the year shows $0 for federal tax withheld, and my paystubs also reflect no federal withholding throughout the year. Upon review, it was found that I submitted a W-4 form in early 2024 with a fiing status of 'single' and claim 4 allowances.
Why would federal taxes not be withheld in this case, and what steps should I take to ensure I am not underpaying taxes?" Well, let me just start by [00:02:00] saying that is a very good question. And I'm going to give you a very good answer here in just a moment. So This situation can occur due to the interaction between the employee's W-4 form, and the claimed allowances based on their income.
So let me give you a little bit of explanation because it's not a simple explanation, but basically it works like this. When you fill out that W-4 form, you're basically saying to the employer, here's what I want you to withhold from my payroll check. Now, a few years ago, the W-4 form was actually pretty usable.
Now it's about impossible to understand, but here's the big picture. I'm going to give you a couple examples. So let's say you make $60,000 a year. That's your annual salary. And then you fill out your W-4 form and on that, you pick single, and you claim 4 dependents. What that basically means is that when the person's handling your payroll, they're going to take that number 4, and they're going to multiply that by $2,000.
So in your particular case, [00:03:00] you would have an $8,000 credit. So basically the way the tax system is going to work or the payroll system is going to work is it's going to look and say, okay, if you make $60,000 a year. Let's just assume you're in the 12 percent effective tax bracket. That means that your taxes will be $7,200.
So think about it. If your expected taxes are going to be $7,200 and here you are, you're claiming $8,000 as a credit, it's never going to withhold any federal tax. So that's the concern you have. Now we have a progressive tax in that some of your income is taxed at a lower level and some of it at a higher level, but that's basically the way that it works now.
Well, how's that impact your tax filing? Well, clearly if you are in a position where you made a mistake and you shouldn't have that much credit, that could result in a tax bill, that could result in penalties for underpayment. Now if you find yourself in that situation, the best way to deal with that is number [00:04:00] one, go get your W-4 form and do it over again.
And now there's thing on the IRS website, which is called an IRS tax withholding estimator, actually played with this yesterday, because we had a similar situation with somebody in our practice here. And you can go out there and it'll ask you to fill in the blanks on your information. It actually tells you to put your information from your latest pay stub in there.
So that's one of the things you can do. Another thing I'm going to encourage you to do if you think about it. Check your pay stubs throughout the year. You don't want to wait till the end of the tax year and then all of a sudden have this surprise surprise, because you weren't thinking that taxes were being withheld.
So I'm going to encourage you to check out those pay stubs as you go because one of the things you don't want to do is find yourself in that position where you're sitting in front of the tax person, or you've doing your own taxes then all of a sudden, you get this big moment of, Oh my gosh, how could I owe that much?
Second thing I'm going to encourage you to do. Consult with a tax professional. Sit down with somebody like myself, and I'll talk about it later in the show how you can schedule [00:05:00] a call with me. It's called book a call with Ralph. You can do that later in the show, but sit down and go over your tax situation.
I was talking to a colleague this morning and the truth of the matter is tax preparation is great. We can do a great job with that. We can do a lot of things. We'll make sure our I's are dotted, our T's are crossed, but where the real value is? That's tax planning. So as we have questions, if there's any comments, feel free to comment in the chat.
I'm going to look over here and check the chat. Don't have any comments as of yet, but if you've got any comments, do that because see, it's all about proactive planning. That's really the value. So I hope I've answered that question. You know, check your pay stubs, whether you get those weekly, bi weekly.
And if you need to make a change, make those changes, but don't wait till the end of the year and then be surprised with, Oh, what could have happened here? Well, let's get to our second question for today. And our second question is this. It says, Dear Ralph, now this is our estate planning question. This one gets a little deep, so I'm going to take some time as we go through this and explain this.
It says, "Dear Ralph, and this is coming [00:06:00] from an attorney. I recently received a question about estate planning and the tax implications. Here's the scenario. So here's the scenario you want to talk about today. An individual has what's called a pour-over will that transfers their entire state into a trust upon their passing.
You know, so in other words, there's this trust that's established. And once this person passes, all of their assets that are listed are going to go into this trust. A family member serves as a trustee of this trust, while another family member is the trust beneficiary. So you got one person that's sort of driving the bus that is the trust.
And then you've got another person that's the beneficiary of that trust. So here's the, where it gets to the rubber meets the road. Currently, the individual owns real property in their name individually. The question, and this is the big question. This is why this attorney's reaching out and asking a tax person this question. The question is whether it would be better for them to transfer the title of the property to the trust
now, in other words, go to the recorder of deeds, have a new [00:07:00] trust drawn, or have a new deed drawn up by the attorney and record that, or leave it in their name until their passing. That's really the central question. If the property is transferred to the trust during their lifetime, and this is the big, this is the spiny thing we need to talk about.
Would the beneficiary lose the step up in basis? And I'm gonna talk about what that is in a few minutes that typically applies upon inheritance. Are there any other tax consequences or benefits to consider in making this decision? What would you recommend in this situation? I'm glad you asked that. I'm going to give you an answer in a second.
Should the individual transfer the property to the trust now, or is there a better course of action?" So let's get to that answer. So a couple of things we covered there. So let's start with, first of all, I'm not going to get into the legal part of this. I am not an attorney. I don't play one on TV.
So this is the kind of question that if you're asking about the creation of the trust, if you're asking about the creation of the will, those are all things that you want to do with an attorney, but let's get to the tax consequences of this. So [00:08:00] first thing, step up basis. Let me explain what that looks like.
So step up basis basically is a part of the IRS tax code that says this. On the day that someone passes, if you inherit something from them, you get what's called step up basis. Well, what does that mean? Let me give you a simple example. So let's use an example here. So let's say this particular person bought this house back in 1970 for a hundred thousand dollars.
Okay. So at the time of their death, you would have a real estate professional give you a valuation. So let's say, let's just use a simple example. So now this property is worth $300,000. It's appreciated because it's been like 50 years, right? So the person who is inheriting this property will get that stepped up basis.
So in other words, what that means is that rather than they're carrying value being that under, and I'll talk about why this matters in a second, but rather than they're carrying balance of being that hundred thousand, it now gets stepped up to that $300,000. Now, why does that matter? Well, [00:09:00] let's say the day after this person's passing, the person who inherits that property or week after a month after whatever, it doesn't really matter, decides to sell that property.
Well, if there wasn't stepped up basis, then their capital gain or their taxable income from this would be whatever the sales prices minus that $100,000 that they, that the person originally paid for it. But that's not the way it works with stepped up basis. This is the beauty of this. So with stepped up basis, let's use another example.
Let's say they turn around and sell the property for $300,000. That's what it was valued at. Well, if we didn't have that stepped up basis, then they would have a $300,000 sale minus the $100,000 basis equals a $200,000 capital gain, but we don't have that with the stepped up basis, our capital gain actually is now zero.
It's zero because you get that stepped up basis to $300,000. So effectively, it's a net zero. So that is a huge question. That's a [00:10:00] huge point. So in this particular question, really the first point is if you transfer that property to the person before you pass away, they're going to lose that step up in basis, which is a big deal.
So my recommendation here is not to do it, but let's move on to the second thing, because here's another thing we hadn't considered. There's also this thing called gift tax. So gift tax basically means that if you gift somebody money, you give them stuff throughout your lifetime, there could be a tax on that.
I'm not going to get into the details of that because we will go down a wormhole and three hours from now, you'll be like, Ralph is still talking. It's not what I'm trying to go today. But there's another consideration there. Now, the benefit to the trust is that it's going to avoid probate. Same thing if you, if you transferred the property now, so let's cut to the chase. Let's get to my recommendation.
This is exactly what I'm recommending. So I generally believe the best choice of here. Now I'm making some assumptions. I'm assuming that the trust is a revocable trust. Means that at any time during a person's life, [00:11:00] they can revoke that. Cause if it was a irrevocable, and I've done a few shows on that,
it's a different story, but let's just say that it's a revocable trust. So my recommendation is to leave the property titled in the individual's name until they pass away, because then you're going to get that stepped up basis. Now, again, I want you to consult with an attorney. I want you to consult with your particular tax professional so that you can get personalized advice in this particular issue, because it's not a simple, it's not a simple thing, but you don't want to miss that stepped up basis.
So I feel like I've covered that question. Now I see something came into the chat. So let's take a look here. And this one comes from AI goes to college. Let's see what it says. It says this. "Suppose I want to work with a professional to do tax planning. What are some questions I should ask them to make sure they're qualified?"
Well, that is a great question. And it's interesting that you asked that question because right this week on the show, the show that comes out, you know the audio show, I'm talking all about, how do you, how do you get to the point where you make a decision to have somebody do your taxes? And [00:12:00] you've reached that point.
And that was actually released on yesterday's show. And today's show is how do you make that decision? Well, one of the things I think you want to look at is credentials. For example, I'm a public accountant. In Delaware, there's really two things. There's a certified public accountant and a public accountant.
Both are licensed professionals. I had to pass a test. I've had to go through training. I had an, you know, apprenticeship time period for that. The only big difference in Delaware, because they have those two now. The PA has actually been sunset. It's what makes me feel old because you can't really even get that anymore.
But the big difference is I don't do big audit. So, so that is really the first thing. Look at their credentials. That would be a CPA, a PA, or you could look at an enrolled agent. Enrolled agent is somebody who has a special designation. They've done testing with the IRS and they focus and they specialize on taxation.
Now you could also work with, and I talked about this on my show that came out today. Actually it came out this morning. I encourage you to check it out. But the other thing you could work with is a tax attorney. I really don't think a tax attorney is the right fit for tax preparation. [00:13:00] And I know AI goes to college.
It's not what you're asking. But I wouldn't go there. Now there's a, the fourth one is what we call an unenrolled preparer. These are the people who work at the H and R block or the people that, you know, set up a shingle in the strip mall. So we're going to move on to the next question, which is question three.
And let me cover question three here. And like I said, this question's coming to us from Claire. So let me get right to Claire's question here. And it says, "Dear Ralph, I'm really worried about my retirement savings. I'm in my mid 40s and I feel like I've wasted so much time. I see my friends and colleagues who seem to have it all figured out, and I'm here, barely scraping by. I'm scared that I won't have enough to retire comfortably. I don't want to be a burden to my kids or end up struggling into my old age. Can you please help me? Now I'm going to check one more thing while we're talking here, because it just occurred to me. That part of the issue [00:14:00] with this might be something else.
So let me try this and see, hopefully we're still coming through loud and clear. Can I get a thumbs up if we're in the chat, if we're coming through loud and clear, much better. Okay, excellent. I apologize again with that. Let me go back to the beginning of this question. So this, like I said, this one came from Claire, it says this. "Dear Ralph, I'm really worried about my retirement savings.
I'm in my mid 40s and I feel like I've wasted so much time. I see my friends and colleagues who seem to have it all figured out, and I'm here, barely scraping by. I'm scared that I won't have enough to retire comfortably. I don't want to be a burden to my kids or end up struggling in my old age. Can you please give me some concrete steps to maximize my retirement savings by 2025?
So I don't, I need help and I don't know where to start." Well, I think that is a great question and I'm assuming we're still coming through loud and clear. So Claire, I just want to say this. I want to thank you for reaching out. I appreciate your concerns and your concerns are real and valid. It's something I deal with every day.
In [00:15:00] fact, I kind of dealt with this myself. You know, I was putting off retirement planning till just a couple of years ago when I turned 50. And now I get it, Claire, you're feeling behind, you're comparing yourself to others. I'm going to warn you to be careful to do that, but more importantly, you're worrying about the future and that can be overwhelming.
But the reason you've tuned in today, and the reason you sent that question in is there truly is hope because I'm going to give you some smart steps that you can take today that can significantly boost your savings and they can help you build a secure future. Now, if you're like Claire and you've got a question, one of the things you can do is just go to justaskralph.com. You can submit your questions there and you'll end up being on either the live show, or you can put them in the chat or you can bring them or you can send them over and we'll put them on the regular show. And don't forget, this live show, we've moved it to one at one o'clock. So I'm going to encourage you to
invite other people, have them come join us for the live show. Hopefully the audio won't be an issue in the future, but it's really a way for people to [00:16:00] get their questions answered. I don't charge for this. They can come out and get all those questions answered. Well, let's get to our Bible verse because one of the things I love to do is start off with the Bible and how we're going to address this issue from Claire today.
And today I picked out this verse and it comes to us from the book of Galatians and it's chapter 6. Verse 7. And it says this, Do not be deceived. That's pretty strong. God is not mocked, even stronger, for what everyone sows, that he will also reap. Well, I got a feeling that is very pointed because this Bible verse reminds us of the principle of sowing.
The Bible talks all about sowing and reaping, and that applies to our finances as well if you think about it. These efforts that we make today, we're planting seeds. I liken it to a garden. When I was younger, I spent a lot of time with my grandfather. My grandfather was a gardener. He liked to do gardening work.
So as you're living your life, as you're growing, as you're getting older, [00:17:00] if you're looking towards retirement, you're planting those seeds because at some point, you're going to want to reap those when you reach that retirement age that works for you. That's going to be your time of harvest. So the efforts that you make today are going to yield harvest down the road.
Well, now let me get to my gratitude statement. As you know, a couple of weeks ago, I started talking about, I always want to have a statement of gratitude. So let me get right to today's statement of gratitude. And today I'm grateful for the wisdom found in the Bible. One of the reasons I do this show, I try to connect two worlds.
I'm connecting that world of faith, and I'm connecting that world of finance because the two things really do go hand in hand, but I am grateful for the wisdom found there because the truth is, the Bible can guide us in our financial decisions. If we really pray about things, if we use that, it reminds us that our actions have consequences. Like today's bible verse, you know, basically you've heard the short of that. You reap what you sow. Our actions have consequences. You know and by sowing [00:18:00] wisely, by making wise decisions,
because Claire, that's exactly what you're asking today, we can reap a bountiful harvest. So let's get right to that and let's talk about how we can get to reaping that bountiful harvest. And I want to share a story about a client I work with a few years ago and his name was Hank. It wasn't Hank, but I'm using that name for this because I don't like to use real names.
Now, Hank was in his late 40s. He first came in to me. This was a hardworking guy. He was a construction guy. He was dedicated to his job. He was dedicated to his, I think he had three kids, is dedicated to his wife and the rest of his family. But here's the problem. Hank was drowning in financial uncertainty.
See, Hank had had a tough life. Hank had medical bills like everybody else. He had car repairs, unexpected expenses, and it seemed like no matter what he did, and this is what he shared with me. He said, Ralph, I have these bills come up, I have this car repair, then the daughter needs this, and the son needs that.
And what happened is they just constantly took priority over his retirement savings. So he reached [00:19:00] out to me and he said, Ralph, I need help dude. I'm getting older and older and I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. I look at, just like you said, Claire, I look at people around me and they've got more put away for retirement.
And I'm sitting here and I'm basically at you know, point one, I'm at the starting blocks. So I sat down with him and we went over, we, I do the same thing I do with everybody. We just sat down and we had a frank conversation and did an assessment of where we are. It wasn't a judgment thing. I wasn't going to sit there and say to Hank, Oh, Hank, you know, I can't believe you haven't, you know, provided for your retirement.
I can't believe you haven't saved because listen, I'm looking across the desk and saying, dude, I know how that is. I always put it off. I always put it off. So I looked at his current situation. And the thing that was cool about Hank's situation is he actually had a 401k, a 401k plan at work. And the thing is his employer would match, as I recall, up to 6 percent of his contributions.
And I said to Hank, I said, listen, dude, you're leaving money on the table. You should [00:20:00] be at least putting in 6 percent because if you don't, then your employer is not going to give you anything either. But if you put in that 6%, your employer kicks in 6%. That's a beautiful way to get started. So I helped him with that.
We looked at the portfolio. Now they had a particular broker that worked with this employer who would come in and meet with him. So I said to Hank, I said, make sure you understand the risk tolerance that you're taking and make sure you diversify. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. I said, you may want to talk to them about which of their investment ideas have minimum fees so you're not getting
hit with big fees. We talked about some tax efficient investing. So if you're going to max out your retirement at work, your 401k, which he wasn't ready to do that, but at least get to that point of making that 6% so he was going to get the match. Another thing we did, we evaluated his housing. I said, listen, as you get older, you know, when the kids start to leave the house, you know, maybe we need to talk about downsizing some, we had a frank discussion.
And I talked about this a couple of weeks ago on the live show about when he's [00:21:00] actually going to claim social security benefits. And I said to him, like, I can help you with all this, but you're going to have to keep coming in. And let's talk about how to make these decisions. So looking back at it now, you know, I always like to talk about the pain points. And Hank's pain points were real.
And they were raw because here he is in his mid 40s and he's like, Ralph, I haven't planned for retirement at all. I work a tough job. And he felt like he was running out of time. I think he said to me in his family, a lot of people live to be pretty old. He said, he said, Ralph, if I don't have anything put aside for savings, I'm going to have a really rough retirement.
And he really thought, and I remember him saying this to me, he said, Ralph, I feel like it's just too late. Maybe I should just throw in the straw. But I said, Hey, it's not, it's never too late. If you don't hear anything else I say today on the show, it's never too late to get started. So we implemented these steps.
We said, okay, let's start by doing at least that 6 percent so we can get that match. And he did that. And afer a couple months, he came back in to see me and let me just tell [00:22:00] you, he felt empowered for the first time in his life. And he said, Ralph, there's hope. He said, look at my pay stub. Look at how much I put aside.
And then he showed me his statement from his investment. Look, Ralph, it's making money. I'm getting a big, big return. And he realized then at that point, if he started sowing, like we talked about in the Bible verse, he realized that with a little planning, with a little discipline, because it wasn't easy for him.
He wasn't used to putting that money aside. So he had to sit back and say, okay, let's figure this out. How can I make this work? We had to look at his budget. He had to look at his spending, but the whole point was he was, he was sowing so that when he went to reap, he would be able to achieve those financial goals and live out his dreams.
And Claire and everyone else listening, it's a powerful reminder for all of us, no matter where you are in your financial journey. I don't care whether you're 20 years old or 60 years old. There's always room for growth and there's always room for improvement. [00:23:00] So let me break down what I call the 10 steps to maximizing your retirement in 2025.
We're in February. It's a great time to make these decisions so let's jump right to them. Number one thing. This one is crucial. Know your contribution limits and take advantage of catch up contributions. What I mean by that is know how much the maximum amount you can put in your 401k. Now, I know everybody can't do that, but if you're in a position to do that, this is something my wife and I started doing a couple of years ago.
We every year are putting in the maximum contribution because again, I started late. Truth be told, I did start late. So what is that maximum look? And if you're over 50, like me, you can put an additional contribution, that catch up contribution. So not the kind of ketchup you put on fries. I'm talking about the catch up to get more into your retirement.
So that's the first thing, know your limits. I would encourage you to know if you're working for an employer, what their matching is and make sure if you don't hear anything else I'm saying today, make sure you're at least doing that much. Second thing, start [00:24:00] early. But again, remember it's never too late to start.
But if you have the opportunity, if you're listening to this right now, or you're watching me live and you're like, Ralph, I'm 22 years old. I'm not worried about retirement. Start early. I wish I had started five years before I started. I wish I had started 10. Hey, if I started 20 years before I started at 50, I would have had a lot more in my retirement plan.
So again, I'm going to encourage you to start early. But don't forget, it's never too late to begin. Number three thing, and I mention this when I talk to Hank. Make sure you understand your investments and diversify them. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. If you have a 401k at work, sit down with the financial planner that your employer is giving you.
Understand the risk tolerances. Understand what you're investing in. Make sure you're comfortable with those things. In my experience, most companies are going to give you a mix of investment choices. You can pick from this investment. And then this one might be very you know, conservative where this one's more aggressive and [00:25:00] maybe you want to mix those together.
Number four thing. A lot of people don't get this one. Minimize those investment fees. Understand the fee structure. Now, this isn't so much for an employer sponsored plan because generally, the employer is going to cover the cost of that. But let's say you're self employed and you're going to do either a simple 401k or some kind of IRA or SEP IRA.
Sit down with the broker and understand the fees you're going to be charged because those fees eat into your returns. So try to find investments with minimum fees. And then the other thing, it's not one of those times where you set it and forget it. So number five thing is you've got to rebalance your portfolio regularly.
You know, have that meeting once a year with your financial planner. I've encouraged you to maybe do it every six months. That's what they're getting paid to do. They're getting paid to manage your money. So sit down with them, review. I don't know how many times I have a financial planner. We had lunch a couple of weeks ago and he said, Ralph, he says, it's funny how many people just set it and forget it.
I don't hear for them for years. [00:26:00] Now, he has an internal obligation to reach out and contact you at least once a year. And he does it for me. He says, Hey Ralph, you know, how do you think things are going? What do you think's going to happen? Now him and I probably talk, you know, two or three times a year.
But I'm going to encourage you to do that. So, you know, meet with that person, rebalance that portfolio. And while you're having that meeting, think about some other tax efficient investments you could get into. Maybe you can do a Roth IRA, which is an after tax retirement plan. Maybe you do that after you've maxed out the retirement plan at work.
If you're, if you have the ability to do that, it's a great idea. Maybe you talk about a 529 college savings plan. Maybe you talk about a health savings account if you don't have one. Those are all things that you can do to have some tax efficient investing. Number seven thing. A lot of people overlook this. As you're starting to plan for retirement,
start planning for healthcare costs. I did a show, I guess it's been about two months ago. And I think the number was at age 65 to the time of people pass, the average [00:27:00] married couple, get ready for this, will spend over $350,000 on medical expenses. So you got to be prepared for that. Build it up that emergency fund.
If you've got that health savings account, start socking away money into that. Done many shows on HSAs. They are a great investment. There's a triple benefit. You get a deduction when you put the money into it, it grows tax free, and then when you take the money out, you don't pay any tax on it. So think about that situation.
Number eight thing. I talk about this on the show as a lot as well. Maybe you need to start thinking about your housing situation. Once the kids have left the nest, do you really need that four bedroom house? Do you need to have the big house that you have? So consider that because that's going to have a big impact on your retirement spending.
If you can cut down on your housing costs, you might say, Ralph, but the house has paid off. That's fine, but you're still going to pay for utilities, you're still going to pay for insurance. Maybe you've got a second floor master bedroom. And it's time to think about, you know, that's one of the things [00:28:00] that when my wife and I bought our house, now we've been here 10 years, but one of the things, the selling points for me was that first floor master bedroom, because basically I don't have to worry about steps as I get older, I don't have to worry about climbing steps.
So that's another thing I'm going to say, evaluate your housing situation. Number nine thing. Take a real hard look at your social security benefits. A lot of people want to jump at those at age 62 and I'm just telling you to put up the warning signs, the flashing red lights, the stop sign, because you may want to delay your social security benefits either to at least full retirement age or after.
And number 10, seek professional advice. Spend some money. A lot of people get aggravated when I say that, but look, you get what you pay for it. If you think you're going to find all your investment advice by going out and looking at Dr. Google or Mr. Google, whatever you want to call it, or go on TikTok or Facebook or Instagram, whatever those things are, right?
You're not going to get good professional advice. So spend some money. I know there's people that [00:29:00] I work with every day. They're like, Ralph, yeah, but yeah, come in and sit down, spend $150 for a consultation. This way, you know where you are. Because here's the truth. Here's a truth bomb for today. You've got the power to transform your financial future.
It's all within your reach. If you think that you don't know where the problem is, I'm going to encourage you to do something. Here's what I want you to do after the show today. You're trying to figure out where the problem is. Go into a room where there's a mirror and look in the mirror and you'll see the problem.
Cause the problem is you. You've got the power to transform your financial future. No one else is going to do it for you. But if you take these steps, there's only 10 of them. You can maximize your retirement savings and you can build a more secure and fulfilling retirement. And remember, big takeaway here. It's never too late to start planning and take action.
Now, maybe you're feeling overwhelmed or maybe you need personalized guidance and I can help you with that. Don't hesitate to reach out. So one of the things you can do is you can go to me and [00:30:00] just go to justaskralph.com. You can sign up for a book a call with me. If you've got any questions, I can help you navigate that stuff.
It is, and thank you, Craig. I'm going to post what you just put there. Let me jump back over to this other screen. Cause Craig put something on the, and I'm going to share that with everybody. And he said, speaking from experience, $150 is well worth it only for peace of mind. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
And that's AI goes to college. And that happens to be a friend of mine, Craig. But yeah, it's exactly right, Craig, because it's money well spent because at least you know where you are. You can make changes if you know where you are. So again, I truly appreciate that comment, you know, and if you've got questions, you know, you can post them in the chat.
I've still got a few more minutes here. Now, one of the things I want to talk about today is if you feel like this show is helping you, if you feel like it's giving you some good information, I'm gonna encourage you to do something. And I'm not, I'm not begging for money. That's not my goal here. But I will encourage you to support the show, and you can do that by going to [00:31:00] askralphpodcast.com/support.
Now, we are not a charity. What you're giving to us is not a contribution, it's just a measure of support. Now you might be saying, Ralph, okay, what are you gonna do with that support? Well, here's what that support does. That support helps us to reach people with this message of hope. With this Christian message of mastering your finances.
It allows us to go on different networks. It allows us to put more content out and you can be a part of that. You can do a one time support. You can do a recurring support, but I really encourage you to do that. And again, you do that by going to askralphpodcast.com/support. Now, let me move into our reflection questions.
The end of each episode I do every day. I always like to think to come back and kind of reflect on what we've talked about today. So I've got three reflection questions. Here's the first one. Number one thing. What is one step you can take today, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month. One step that you can take today to start maximizing your retirement [00:32:00] savings? Does that mean learning what your employer offers? If you're self employed, you're doing some research into setting up even something as simple as a traditional IRA. Yes, you can only put about 7,000 into it, but what can you do today? And I don't care if you're 20 years old or 60 years old, do something today to improve your retirement situation.
So that's the first one. Number two. How can you apply the principle of sowing and reaping from Galatians 6:7, that's the Bible verse we talked about today, to your financial planning? How can you use that to motivate you? How can you take that biblical truth and say, Ralph, you know, I heard that loud and clear.
The scripture's speaking to me on this. Well, what can you do about that? What can you start to sow now so that when you get to that retirement point, you'll be able to reap that in the future. And my third and final reflection question for today is what specific action will you take today, and this is going to annoy anybody who's a financial [00:33:00] advisor or one of these brokers.
What specific action will you take today to reduce investment fees and increase your savings? One of the things that is a Ralph's personal pet peeve is when you go to one of these brokers and I'm not saying they're bad people. Don't misunderstand me. But understand their fees because listen, they're in business to make money, just like me.
Just like a lot of you. But understand their fees and understand what you can do to reduce those fees. Now, before we close out today, I just want to remind everybody that one of the other things that I started doing a couple of weeks ago is I write a daily blog post. So every day when I put out the show, you get to see me on YouTube or Rumble.
You can hear me on Apple podcast, Spotify, you name it. We're out there. But I also write a blog post and you can get that by going to askralphpodcast.com/blog. Now in the blog, and it's not going to be exactly what you're hearing on the episode. I'm going to dig a little deeper.
I'm going to do some deeper insights. I share resources, I share references, and it's an opportunity to read about some more things. There'll be hyperlinks in there where [00:34:00] you can actually go look at the articles that I've used to assemble the show, because see, here's the deal. When I say something to you on the show, I'm able to back it up.
Either I'm using my 30 years of experience or I have references for what I'm saying to you. I'm not making this up as I go along. So that's why I do that blog post because I really feel like there's a huge thing for people to be able to trust but verify. Craig, you mentioned a little while ago, and I forgot to mention this when you were talking about it.
How do you find somebody to handle your taxes? And I'm going to say this. You have to trust this person. I honestly believe this. I actually believe that the relationship you have with your accountant is sometimes even more intimate than the relationship you have with your wife or your girlfriend or your fiancee.
Because if I'm going to be effective in my job, I'm going to know all of the details. So you got to work with somebody that you can trust. If you get a weird vibe, and I'll talk about that on my show tomorrow, that'll come out. If you get a weird vibe, run the other direction. Because this is a [00:35:00] trust relationship.
And I say this to clients all the time. I'm not in the accounting business. I'm not in the tax business. I'm in the relationship business. And that's what this is all about. You know, building that relationship, understanding that I need to be honest with you. You need to be honest with me, but it's all about the relationship.
So let's see if we've got any questions in the chat. I don't see any at this moment, but feel free to ask any questions. I'm here to provide you with any guidance you might need. And we can do that as we go here. And let's just see where we're going next here. Let me get over back to this screen. We were having some technical issues today, but it's going to be okay.
So as I conclude today, I just want to encourage you. I want to encourage you to stay engaged with the show. I appreciate everybody who showed up for today for the live show. Again, we do this every Monday at 1 PM. You can check out the daily show. We do blogs, we do a shorts. All of those things are all. You can go to askralph.com. It's all right there for you. I encourage you to [00:36:00] follow us on social media. You can subscribe to our newsletter. I send a daily email that talks about what I'm talking about on this show, but here's the big takeaway. Together we can learn, we can grow, and we can achieve financial success. So again, thank you for joining me today, and I look forward to our next live session.
And before I let you go, I want you to leave you with one final thought. Never underestimate the power of small, consistent steps. As I said, start small. It's never too late to start, whether it's saving for retirement, managing your taxes, planning for your estate. Every action you take today brings you a step closer to a secure and fulfilling future.
So here's my encouragement for you today. Keep moving forward, stay informed, educate yourself, but most of all, trust in the wisdom of biblical principles to guide your financial journey. So I say this as I close, stay financially savvy out there. May God bless you and may you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Podcast Announcer
00:37:43

Thank you for joining us on the Ask Ralph Show. And with a simple click to subscribe, we we'll invite you back to our next episode. And remember, financial issues don't have to be complicated. Just ask Ralph.

The information contained in this episode of Ask Ralph is based on data available as of the date of its release. Saggio Accounting Plus and Ask Ralph Media, Inc. Is under no obligation to update this content if changes occur.

Applying this information to your specific situation requires careful consideration of all facts and circumstances and any of information provided is not to be considered as financial, tax or legal advice. Please consult your tax advisor or attorney before acting on any material covered.