Mondays With Matt Podcast

Plan Your Summer Vacation & Your Retirement

If you’re heading out on a road trip this summer, there’s a long checklist of items that you want to be sure you haven’t forgotten. And in retirement planning, some of those exact same items need to be addressed. Let’s look at some of the items that should appear on both your road trip checklist and your retirement planning checklist...

Defining The Buzzword “Safe Money”

It seems that people have different definitions of “safe money” as it relates to their savings. Let’s discuss some of those varying explanations of the term and why it’s an important conversation for any retiree or pre-retiree to have.

When Is It “Safe” For You To Retire?

We get a lot of questions from listeners wanting to know how they can determine when it will be “safe” for them to retire. Let’s look at some of the key factors that help a person define what “safe” means and when they can indeed pull that retirement lever.

The 6 Things Wasting Away In Your Financial Junk Drawer

Most people have a junk drawer at home. It usually contains things like rubber bands, clothespins, highlighters, glue sticks, a tape measure, a label maker, and a pair of scissors. But most people have a financial junk drawer too. Let’s talk about some of the things that end up there and how they might be put to better use.

Possible Tax Changes?

This week we discuss the new proposed gas tax hike in Michigan as well as political conversations around larger taxes for larger estates.

Retirement Planning: When DIY Works (And When It Doesn’t)

In many areas of our culture, the do-it-yourself mentality is really popular. There’s even a DIY Network where you can watch shows about home renovation, landscaping, or interior design, and how to do those things without professional help. Let’s talk about what the DIY mentality looks like in retirement planning…

The Upsides And Downsides Of An Informed Consumer

You want to feel informed about your options when it comes to making financial decisions. So, you probably turn to a lot of different sources to gather that information. Let’s look at some of the most popular areas from which you’re getting your financial education and evaluate whether these are wise areas from which to grow your financial knowledge.

Episode #4: How To Spot A Bad Advisor

How do you know if your financial advisor is a bad fit for you? What about an advisor that you’re thinking about working with? How can you tell the good ones from the bad ones?

Episode #3: Risk Tolerance

Any advisor worth his or her salt is going to have a conversation with you about risk. But what in the world is “risk tolerance”? It’s a buzzword that gets used a lot in meetings with financial advisors, but we’ve found that a lot of people don’t have a great understanding of how their risk tolerance truly impacts their financial and retirement plans. Let’s fix that and give you the 411 on risk tolerance.

Episode #2: 5 Hidden Expenses You Need To Know About

Just because you can’t plainly see all the expenses you’ll incur during the retirement planning process doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Let’s cover 5 important areas where you’ll want to watch for hidden expenses.