Amy: Tonight, we're calling this a victory for all investors who want to retire someday, and that probably means you. You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Ruby. We were just talking about this, right? We said it was coming, and now it is here. We've got the final version of a rule that would require the people that you are working with when it comes to your money to, get this, put your interest before theirs.

Steve: Yeah, a lot of people think that that's already happening, but unfortunately...

Amy: It's confusing.

Steve: ...that is not the reality of the situation. When you're working with a registered investment advisor firm where you have credentialed advisors, CFPs, CFAs, these individuals are acting as fiduciaries. They are putting your best interest ahead of their own, but that's not the case when you're working with a lot of broker-dealers, advisors that work for these companies, and those that sell insurance products or hybrid insurance products like indexed annuities, for example. This has been an ongoing conversation for years now, and the Department of Labor who oversees retirement plans...workplace retirement plans like 401(k)s and some of the rules around processing rollovers from 401(k)s to IRAs, they've been building this fiduciary rule for many years now.

Amy: On a practical standpoint, we often will have someone come into our office and we'll say, oh, have you ever worked with someone before? And they'll say, yes. And I have these annuities. And we'll take a closer look, and we'll be like, oh, gosh, this isn't really suited for what you're trying to do here. Were you aware that you paid 8% or 10% in commission? And it's like, the more that you put some transparency on these products, the more people, they're like, wait, what? Well, no, that's not what I signed up for. But yes, it is. And I think it can be incredibly frustrating for investors after the fact to realize, wait a second, this wasn't the best thing at all for me. Yet this person walked away with an 8%, 10% commission right off the top.

Steve: I see a lot of buyer's remorse for certain types of annuities where people are locked in and they have surrender charges if they get out of these products early, which can be five, six, seven years after purchasing them. You still have to pay fees to close out of something that you purchase that you don't necessarily need and never did, which is what the Department of Labor is trying to combat, because there's oftentimes significant conflicts of interest. And the people selling these products, currently there's no obligation to act in the best interest of the people that they're selling these products to.

Amy: And frankly, the insurance industry doesn't want that to change, right?

Steve: No, they do not.

Amy: The standard that they are currently or have been held to is, is it suitable? It would be like saying, here's five different things that you can have. Any of them are fine. One of them is glaringly the best thing for you, but I'm not going to tell you to pick that one, right? And that's kind of the standard. Was it suitable? And I think this is a really sort of easy thing to argue, well, yeah, it kind of works. If they want to save for retirement, we sold them an annuity. It'll give them money in retirement, right?

And it's like, but if that money had been invested, okay, what would that look like now, right? What would have been the best option for them over the course of their lifetime? So suitable versus best interest, those two different standards are vastly different worlds. And I think it's really confusing for consumers. And I completely understand this, to think, okay, I want to work with a financial advisor, but you've got two different people held to two very different standards that are both presenting themselves to consumers as the exact same thing.

Steve: Yeah, I can't stress enough how vastly different that really is.

Amy: Yes, two different worlds.

Steve: Because when it comes to somebody that's working in the realm of suitability, quite frankly, it's pretty easy to ask somebody about 50 questions and then cherry-pick certain answers to determine that, sure, the thing I'm going to sell you is suitable based on what you said about X, Y, and Z. And just keeping a note of that in the official records of the company is good enough because it says, yeah, well, they told me that they might need some income in retirement. But it doesn't go into the fact that they already have a pension, they already have Social Security, they don't have any other portfolio assets to pull from if they need more money than their fixed income stream gives them.

So, when you're working with a fiduciary, they have to look at the entire picture, all of your financial situation before they make a recommendation on a particular product. And if there is a conflict of interest, it needs to be disclosed. A conflict of interest example would be paying a hefty commission for selling that particular product. And that's not something that people that buy them necessarily understand. This is something that's, I don't know if you could tell, I'm a little passionate about it.

Amy: You should be. We all are.

Steve: Yeah. And the chair that we sit in, sure, we're a little bit biased because, yes, we are fiduciaries, and we've been doing it in what I would call the right way for a long time.

Amy: We're fiduciaries because we choose to be that because we think it is the best thing for the people who we work with, right?

Steve: That is correct. And, you know, a lot of us in this industry have spent time in chairs where we weren't necessarily fiduciaries, where we were just working on the suitability standard. I've been there myself. And there's a reason why I'm no longer there. Sure, sure. I feel like I helped people when I was in those chairs, but to be in a place where we are expected to be fiduciaries and truly have an opportunity to put a client's best interests ahead of our own, that's why there's a lot of registered investment advisory firms just like Allworth with CFPs and CFAs partnering with, you know, their clients in the fiduciary standard. So, when the Department of Labor comes out with these rules, there's a lot of us that are like, okay, cool, no big deal. This isn't going to change how we have to work with clients at all. But there's a big part of the industry that sees this, and they are terrified.

Amy: You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Ruby, as we lay out this new rule coming from the Department of Labor, and we like it. And Steve just explaining to you, we like it because it's what we already do. Nothing changes for us. It's status quo. We believe this is the best way to serve clients, the best way to serve investors. But yes, there is a large industry out there with, let's face it, very deep pockets. And in Washington, that means a very strong lobby that has been lobbying against this for years. In fact, going back to 2016, when President Obama was in office, something similar. I think it was probably a little more strict in how it was written, came down the pike, and it was overturned. But it took years and years and years to even get to that place because that lobby is so powerful.

And I think it's so interesting because the way the insurance industry comes to this is they said, okay, during that period of time when Obama's rule came into effect, between that and the time that it was overturned, there were hundreds of thousands of Americans who didn't have access to quality financial planning help. I am throwing a very large BS flag on that. I am. I mean, I think that's crazy.

Steve: That's a good way to put it. Literally, there's a group that came out and said the American Council of Life Insurers, a trade group, specifically that they're saying that what is being put forth by the current administration is alarmingly similar to the DOL's 2016 regulation under Obama. And before it was overturned, because it was, Obama's rule was pretty far-reaching. And what they said is that it caused...they literally argued that it caused more than 10 million investor accounts with $900 billion in total savings to lose access to professional financial guidance.

The wording there is important because guidance is something that is educational. Guidance is not advice in the best interest of a client. So these companies, what they did is chose not to provide advice. Rather, they said, I'm not going to touch that with a 10-foot pole because that's not what we do. We don't provide advice. We sell products for commissions using the suitability standard. So these companies chose not to do the right thing and then said that it was because of this ruling. They had the power to do the right thing, which is putting a client's best interest ahead of their own. They just chose not to.

Amy: Hence, kind of shining an even larger glaring light on the difference between these two standards. And I think it's just incredibly important to understand those. Now, the Labor Department, what they're trying to do is sort of twofold here, right? They're trying to crack down on people who are selling you things, insurance products like annuities. That's one thing. They're also trying to restrain what they call bad actors who are pushing people to roll over 401(k) plans into other kinds of accounts. Now, this one really kind of depends. And I think this is where you definitely need to be working with a fiduciary.

There's lots of times when that can make absolute sense for you. Say your 401(k) doesn't have a lot of great investment options, and you've got more flexibility outside of that. You know, you've got several old 401(k)s, right? It might make sense to roll those into an IRA. But the key is you need to be working with someone who's not making that recommendation to you because they're going to make a large fee or commission off of what they're doing. It's someone who's saying, hey, we actually believe this is truly in your best interest.

Steve: Well, another argument for processing a rollover from a 401(k) to an IRA is because it opens the door up to being able to work with a registered investment advisory firm that is going to provide you not just investment management, but holistic financial planning. Now, the bottom line is, is if you keep your money in a 401(k) and you try to manage it yourself, that's cheaper than hiring somebody that's going to do everything for you and provide you all those other services. That's common sense. But what happens is certain actors in the industry don't disclose the fact that people are going to pay a certain fee. And registered investment advisory firms, fiduciaries, they don't hide behind their fees. We can justify it based on what we offer to folks that we work with.

Amy: We're proud of it. We're proud of the fact that we get paid to do what we do because everyone should get paid to do what they do, right? It's their job. But if you really strongly believe that there's value in what you're doing, then that's not a difficult thing to have to explain to someone. And I think the smoke and mirrors that can often be used in selling someone a product where they don't truly understand, first of all, how much you're getting paid by selling it to them. What happens if they change their mind and no longer want this and no longer serves their best interest, right? There's just so much lack of transparency in that place.

And I think the difference, if you want to look at another difference between that sort of suitability and fiduciary, is we believe sunshine is the best antiseptic, right? We believe that we should have full transparency in everything we say and do for clients, and they should completely understand that. You won't necessarily find that when someone has a suitability standard.

Steve: Yeah, I agree. I do. And, you know, this type of what we're talking about today, obviously, we're passionate about it and we, you know, Allworth and other registered investment advisory companies are already acting as fiduciary. So a DOL standard isn't a big deal to us. But you had mentioned that there are, you know, some big actors in the industry that have a lot of money to throw towards lobbying. I do see that this is probably going to head to court again, just like the Obama DOL ruling did. And at this point, it's set to start later this year in September, or actually later next year in September of 2025.

Amy: Stay tuned. Here's the Allworth advice. We believe that anyone providing any kind of financial advice should always be putting your interests first. And we hope that you believe that too. That's why we think this is such a good thing, and we hope that it actually does become law. Coming up next, we're going to talk about a push to bring back pensions. Could it actually happen?

You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial, here on 55KRC, THE TALK Station. You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Ruby. If you can't listen to our show every night, you do not have to miss a thing. We've got a daily podcast for you. Just search "Simply Money." It's right there on the iHeart app or whatever you turn to to get your podcast. Coming up at 6:43, we are tackling your questions in our Ask the Advisor segment. Steve, interesting day for economic data. Lots of stuff coming in and as Wall Street as your 401(k) is trying to digest it, not really liking it much.

Steve: No, not much, because what happened is GDP, while up, did not increase as much as a lot of economics surveyed by the Dow Jones had expected. So GDP, which is the measure of goods and services produced in Q1, so January through March of this year, it increased by 1.6% annualized and adjusted for inflation. But a lot of economists were expecting an increase of 2.4%.

Amy: Well, not only that, now we've got core PCE, right? So a huge measure of inflation coming in hotter than expected. And I really think that what the market is trying to digest today is that we've all kind of gotten used to or wrapped our brains around the fact that as the Federal Reserve, our nation's central bank, has been doing the work to bring down inflation by raising interest rates that the so-called soft landing that seemed so difficult to actually make happen might actually be happening. And both of these things kind of show, okay, so the soft landing isn't happening if we're contracting still, right? If the economy isn't getting bigger. And at the same time, what you want to see is, of course, inflation trending down. And we just... Gosh, the last few months, it has been so difficult to get it back down, so stubborn.

Steve: Well, I mean, that's an expectation that the Fed has set, and we've been talking about for quite some time now. It's really hard to get across the finish line here. To bring it down from 9% to 5% is a lot easier than bringing it down from 4% to 2%. And at this point, with the economy not growing as much as anticipated, that could point towards the Fed perhaps stepping in and actually decreasing rates as we had expected last year.

Amy: Right, I know. And it's like, so maybe tomorrow the markets realize that, and then they like it, right? I mean, it's just so interesting how, and I think what you just have to understand as an investor is there are going to be days like this all the time, right, this kind of volatility. And I've seen it many times where one day it seems like the market is taking one piece of information and saying this is bad. And then by the next day, say, well, maybe it's not so bad. Actually, maybe it's good, right? Just very, very fickle. And you have to understand that price of admission if you're going to be a smart, long-term investor.

So if you are in retirement, we have... And historically, in the United States, we've talked about sort of retirement being a three-legged stool. My grandpa, Hubert Wagner, when he retired from Cincinnati Milacron, he had a pension. He had full Social Security benefits, and then he had whatever he and my grandma had saved. Three-legged stool was very sturdy. It worked. They both lived into their 90s, and they were fine. There was still money left when they passed away. And actually, my grandpa developed Parkinson's and was in a skilled care facility for years. And still, they were okay. Here's the problem. Most of us don't have those pensions anymore.

Steve: Yeah. Many employers, they started making the shift to 401(k)s and other different types of deferred compensation plans back in the '80s because pensions are expensive.

Amy: Can you imagine the guy that went into the tax code and was like, oh, actually, there's a way that we can put money into, and 401(k) is just like the part of the tax code that refers to this. And all of a sudden, you have employers everywhere throwing up their hats and enjoy opening bottles of champagne. Like, wait a second. We can sort of make it look like we're helping our employees with their retirement because we can give them a match. But ultimately, it's on him, and all these headaches over pension, out the window.

Steve: Yeah, exactly. It was so expensive to run these pensions because people are living longer than ever before. These dollars had to stretch even further. Milacron, you mentioned your grandfather living there. There's a lot of Milacron employees over time that work with Allworth Financial, and their pension went away too. For new employees, that is. Just like many other companies out there, they stepped in and they said, wow, this is a cost that we just cannot support. So making that pivot to 401(k)s and taking the responsibility of saving for individuals off the shoulders of employers and moving them to the employee was a major cost saver for companies.

Amy: Here's a little bit of research that doesn't surprise me. The National Institute on Retirement Security asked workers, hey, if your current employer offered a pension, would you stay at that company longer even if another job opportunity that looked really great arose? In this case, 9 out of 10 people said absolutely.

Steve: Of course.

Amy: I know people who have pensions who don't necessarily love what they do, but they are never leaving because it is like this beautiful carrot dangled out in front of their faces that 5 more years, 10 more years, whatever it is, that money is coming to them. And there's nothing that they have to do other than stick around. I mean, it is a really sort of powerful tool to keep consistency in your workforce.

You had IBM, who had, just like you mentioned, Cincinnati Milacron, frozen pensions for new employees who have then since recently reopened those pensions because they see the benefits that come with them. I don't know that others are going to be knocking down the doors, saying, oh, great, great, we see the benefits of this. Sign us up for pension plans for our employees. I really do think this is still a thing of the past.

Steve: It's funny to see it come full circle to an extent, with IBM being a prime example of that currently because there are... You know, the research clearly shows that you are going to not only attract the best talent, but retain the best talent if you're okay with footing the bill for paying... You're essentially paying the salary of these employees through the end of their lives. And if they elect some kind of a survivor benefit, then through the end of their partner's lives as well. So it is a big cost, but some companies out there are looking at the opportunity to use pensions to bring in and retain some top talent.

Amy: So a few questions about pensions. If you have one or just interested because you don't have one, pensions take effect once you are in retirement, right? And you usually have two options, a payout, like a monthly payout or a lump sum. This is really kind of a know-yourself situation, right? It almost can feel like winning the lottery when that huge lump sum hits your account. And if you are like, take me on the trip, you know, buy the new car. Well, then maybe that's not the best thing for you.

Here's the Allworth advice. If you have a pension, make sure you've got the timing of when you will take it all planned out. Now, if you don't have one, it's on you. Do your best to sock away and invest your money. Coming up next, we're tackling one of the most important aspects of estate planning. You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial, here on 55KRC, THE TALK Station. You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Ruby. This is a part of the estate planning process that nobody likes to think about. But parents, if you have kiddos under the age of 18, it is critical. What happens to your children, right? Where do they go? Who's taking care of them if you and your spouse are no longer here to take care of them?

Joining us tonight with years, right, decades of experience helping families make these critical decisions is our estate planning expert, Mark Reckman, from the law firm of Wood + Lamping. I don't think, Mark, I can overstate how emotional of a decision this is. I mean, it's one thing to be talking about dividing up your assets. It's another thing to talk about what happens to your kids.

Mark: Well, for many, many folks, they don't think about it at all. They can't, for that very reason.

Amy: Yeah, it seems overwhelming. And I remember when my kids were born, you know, having this conversation, and it was...it wasn't an easy one. You know, my husband and I weren't always on the same page. There were certain people who thought they should be chosen. And for certain reasons, they didn't seem like the perfect fit for us. So there's a lot that goes into making this decision.

Mark: And it's individualized for each family and each child. I mean, you have to assess the needs of the child, as well as the attributes of the persons you're considering to name.

Amy: So, what do you say? What do you think through in order to make sure that you're coming up with the best decision for your family?

Mark: I think the starting point is parenting skills. You have to evaluate whether or not the person you're appointing or that you're nominating has the kind of parenting skills that fit your family. Recognize that your children, they'll be traumatized by your deaths. It's a big, big deal to them. Their guardians are going to be patient. They're going to need compassion, and they're going to have to deal with the grief and the process by which your kids will evolve after you're gone.

Amy: You know, it's funny, when we first made this decision for our children when they were younger, chose a family member that doesn't live close by, that didn't have kids yet. It just made sense at the time, someone who definitely loved our children a lot. But as then this family had their own children, we realized the parenting styles were incredibly different and it wouldn't have ultimately been the best fit. So I think this is something that you cannot set it and forget it, right? Like, this is something parents, if you figured this out a few years ago, you need to revisit this from time to time.

Mark: And I would add to that, Amy, that try not to think about this as the one time you get to make this decision. Many of my clients get overwhelmed with the notion that they're picking someone that's going to be the guardian for the next 18 years, and they get frozen by the challenge. Think about this in terms of where your children are now. What kind of guardianship environment would be best for them based on their age and their abilities today? And then you can reevaluate it later. And by the way, the probate courts in this area, they're going to take the interests of the children into consideration if the children are older. So if, for example, you died and your surviving children are 15, 16, 17 years old, the probate court is going to listen to that child's preferences, and they will override the nomination and a guardianship nomination when appropriate.

Amy: That makes a lot of sense. You talk about parenting skills as being part of it. I mentioned, though, that we'd also chosen someone who didn't even live in the same state. It was okay when my kids were toddlers to make that decision. But once they're enrolled in schools and sports and clubs and have friends, that becomes a very different kind of situation. You know, you mentioned they're already reeling from the loss of their parents. And now, you know, it may not make so much sense, even if it's someone who loves them very much, to completely uproot them.

Mark: Well, this just reinforces the point you made earlier, which is that this decision isn't...you can't just make this decision and leave it alone and walk away. You have to revisit it. Your kids are going to be different when they're 12 and 14 than they are when they're 2. Once they're in school and involved in these activities that you mentioned, the stability of staying in school and staying with their friends and their activities may be important to their mental health, in which case moving them across the state or across the country to a different guardianship to a different set of parents may not be in their best interest. So, think about where the guardian lives based on the age of the children. As you said, the older the children get, the more the location matters.

Amy: What other considerations, Mark, would you say? Because it is, it's such an overwhelming emotional decision. When you're counseling families on how to make this, what else do you bring up as a consideration here?

Mark: I think religion, politics, and moral beliefs are a part of this. I think that you pick someone who is compatible with your religion and your politics, or at least will be supportive of your child's own differences. If your child has a different set of politics or religion, the guardian needs to be able to respect that. The guardian's age makes a difference. Many people, if they don't have siblings nearby, they will default to their own parents. That's fine if your parents are 50 or 60. It may not be such a good idea if they're 75 or 80. So think about the age of the parents. Think about the age of your children. Think about the living arrangements as well. The guardian needs to live in a place and a house and the neighborhood and the school district that fits for your children. Is the house big enough? Are there other children living in the house? Those things are helpful for your child to adjust. One of the big ones I think about a lot, Amy, is that taking care of your children is going to be a significant financial burden to whoever you name.

Amy: Yeah, absolutely.

Mark: It's just not okay to say, take care of my kids, and oh, by the way, you have to pay for it. That's just not okay. You've got to make some arrangement either through life insurance or retirement accounts or a trust. You've got to make some arrangement to cover the cost of rearing your children, unless your guardian, of course, has significant financial resources of their own. But even then, it's not fair to ask your guardian to pay for your kids' education or their cost of living. And one of the other things...

Amy: This is a conversation too, right, Mark? You can't choose someone and just put it in a document, and then something happens to you and surprise, you're taking care of our children. That conversation needs to happen with the caregiver. I would say if the children are older, don't make it a scary conversation, but it might be good to get their input as well.

Mark: I think that's an excellent point. Certainly, your child is going to be much more adjusted or much more comfortable with these events if they, number one, had a chance to give some input and, number two, they're fully informed.

Amy: Kind of know what to expect.

Mark: Yeah, exactly. And Amy, there is one more point before we wrap up, and that is that many times people will say to me they want to name a couple, you know, a married couple as guardians. That's really not the way the guardianship system works. You name an individual, not a couple. What I suggest to people is that it's always a good idea to have a backup so that, in your will, you may say, I nominate my sister to be the guardian, and if she's not available, then I nominate my brother so that you have somebody on the bench. By the way, you don't have to do a guardianship nomination in a will. There is a process in both Kentucky and Ohio in which you can do a guardianship nomination as a standalone document. Most people, however, put them in their wills, but if you've got a will and you don't want to change your will but you want to change the guardianship nomination, you can do that by a separate document all by itself without redoing your whole will.

Amy: Great insights as always from Mark Reckman, our estate planning expert from the law firm of Wood + Lamping. You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial, here on 55KRC, THE TALK Station. You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Ruby. Straight ahead, so many financial documents, so many papers lying around your house. What do you need? What can you toss? What should you shred? We'll get to that coming up in just a few minutes. Do you have a financial question you want us to answer? There's a red button you can click on while you're listening to the show. It's right there on the iHeart app, really easy to use. Record your question, and it's coming straight to us. Let's get to this week's questions. Our first comes from Paul, who lives in Madeira.

Paul: Hey, Amy and Steve. I'm 61. I know that if I claim Social Security early, my benefit will be reduced, but will my benefit increase once I reach full retirement age?

Steve: It depends. So, this is a tricky question because if you are not working, then the answer is no. But if you are working and you earn a certain amount, then that's where you get that reduced benefit, up to $2 for every dollar earned or $3 for every earned. Now that money is actually being paid into Social Security. And once you hit full retirement age, if you collect early, then that will increase your benefit later on.

Amy: I think this is one of the most confusing things.

Steve: Yeah, if you're not working, then the answer is a resounding no. You have locked into that lower benefit amount for the rest of your life.

Amy: And I think people think that, wait, I'm just going to take the lower benefit at 62 as soon as I can and ride that out. And when I get to full retirement age, I'm going to take that amount, right, the full promised amount. No, no, no, no, no. You get to do this once. There's a couple of tiny loopholes, but mostly, you get to do this once. And whatever you lock in, that's your benefit. It's not changing. Coming up next, we've got Trish from Batavia.

Trish: Thanks for taking my question. What's the difference between a money market account and savings account and which is better for an emergency fund?

Steve: So, a money market account is actually invested, but it's invested in very short-term securities. So, technically, there is a sprinkle more risk than you're just cash sitting there in savings, which is not invested to any capacity. That's why if you have a big bank and you're sitting in a savings account, they're going to pay you 0.01%. Whereas a money market in a high-interest rate environment like we're in, you're going to get a little more than that. But technically, back in the Great Recession, the money markets broke the buck, is what it's called. And they went below the value of a dollar. So there's more risk than just cash. However, I would say that it's so minute and minimal that I like the money market in a high-interest rate environment for an emergency fund much more than regular old boring cash.

Amy: These are very, very similar. I think if you're trying to figure out what to do for an emergency fund, you can't go wrong with either because you need money that's easily liquid. Money markets can have a little more flexibility. Many of them can come with a debit card, and you can write maybe a few checks a month out of that account. So that can make it easier to get to than just a savings account. We have to walk into that brick-and-mortar bank sometimes to get the money. But at the same time, often money market accounts will have higher minimums and higher balances that you have to keep for opening the account and keeping in there. So, really, it's just what works best for you.

But honestly, especially right now, where if you're smart and with an online bank, you can get higher interest rates. I think they're very, very similar. Just kind of figuring out the quirks of each one and which works best for you makes sense. But I wouldn't say one is like heads and tails above the other. Next, we've got Daniel in Newport.

Daniel: I'm facing about $6,000 in credit card debt and have about $50,000 saved in my 401(k). Should I withdraw money from the 401(k) to clear that debt? I'm in my early thirties.

Amy: So, Daniel, this is a question we get pretty often. And I always find it interesting because when someone finds themselves in any sort of financial pickle, whether it is credit card debt or an unexpected bill, the first thing they go to is that 401(k), right, because you know you have the money sock there. And while you are 30 and you have years until retirement, the good thing about that money in that 401(k) is it has years to grow and compound, right? Your money makes money. And the money that money makes makes more money.

My suggestion for you, rather than pulling money out of that 401(k) to pay off that debt, is that you get serious now about paying off that debt because it's probably 20-plus percent interest that you're paying on that. So even if it means you're going out less, less vacations, whatever it is, laser focus on paying off that debt, keep the money in that 401(k), get that debt paid off, and then get out of the cycle totally.

Steve: That $6,000 could turn into a really fancy boat or a down payment for a big vacation home in retirement. You're only 30. Those dollars have a long time to work for you. I agree. Buckle down and find ways to make payments towards the credit card debt rather than touching any kind of retirement money.

Amy: Absolutely. All right. Last question. Tony in Westwood.

Tony: Hey guys, I just discovered that my husband has a vastly different sense of what retirement looks like for us. Do you have any suggestions for how can we find some common ground?

Steve: I would say sit down with a fiduciary financial planner and build out a financial plan because that's going to light a fire up underneath you guys to understand where you fall. If there's gaps, how do we close them if there's time left to do so? And it's going to start that conversation because that's what you need to focus on here is communication, sitting down, finding what is important to you. What do you value? How do you spend time in retirement? So, sitting down and starting that financial plan is going to kind of force your hand to have that conversation.

Amy: You often joke that, as financial advisors, we are often couples' counselors as well, right? So this is a good way to get behind a third party in front of a third party that can help you figure this out. Coming up next, what to do with all of those financial documents that are just laying around your house. You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial, here on 55KRC, THE TALK Station. You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Ruby.

This is one that's kind of a head-scratcher for a lot of people. It's like financial documents. We get so much papers like into our house and, you know, what do you need to keep and what needs to be stored in a fireproof safe and what can you shred and what can you throw away? Tonight, we're helping you make sense of all of this. And I'm telling you, once you kind of do one of these sort of financial paper organizations, like you're like, oh, I could get rid of so much stuff and now I feel so much more organized. So this is a great thing to focus on, I would say, you know, any time of the year.

Steve: So you don't have a huge room full of all old documents from everything you ever bought.

Amy: I used to. I'm not going to lie. I used to a few years ago and then I got serious about this and was like, okay, I'm keeping every statement that I'm getting every month from my credit card, from Duke Energy and every bill that I pay. Why am I keeping these? I went online and made them all digital where they're just emailed to me. And then I went and threw out a bunch of old stuff that really didn't matter. So there are some things that do matter, though.

Steve: Yeah, absolutely. Forever documents, obvious ones, birth certificate, adoption papers, death certificates, marriage, divorce records, Social Security cards. You know, that's something that we do need to show every once in a while. Military service records, including any kind of discharge documents, because if you are honorably discharged service member, then you are eligible to receive funeral and burial benefits, loan payoff statements. This list obviously is still kind of long on what I'm talking about here. But if it's important and you may need to come back to it for some reason, that's the differentiator here. The loan payoff statement, for example, if you negotiated to pay less than what you owed on a debt, then keep that original agreement forever. Because if that debt is sold to another collector for pennies on the dollar, then a lot of that information can be lost, for example.

Amy: Another thing that you may have never thought of is year-end pay stubs. You don't have to keep all of them. But if the company you're working for goes out of business at some point, it is not so easy to remember, wait a second, where was that headquartered? Or they got bought out by someone else. And at least if you have the original name and information, you've got a much better starting point. Old retirement or pension records. I have a small pension from my first two jobs working for a company. And it was terrible for a few years after I left there trying to get any sort of records of how I could contact them. And I had to just call and call. And it was really frustrating. So making sure you're keeping track of those things also incredibly important.

Steve: Yeah, same thing with investment statements for taxable accounts, because if you need to prove what the cost basis was of a particular security from years ago, it can be a little bit of a headache if you don't have those original documents. Now, things where it depends would be maybe the original loan documents that you took out for something once you have the documents proving that the balance was paid in full. Receipts for big-ticket items while you own them. This would be for insurance purposes in case of a fire, theft, something like that. I'm talking like a big-screen TV, computer, major appliances. These are things that you might need to prove that you had in case there was some kind of a loss. But you don't need to keep them longer than those things exist, for example.

Amy: And tax records, three to seven years. That's what the IRS recommends. You don't have to keep them any longer than that. Thanks for listening tonight. You've been listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial, here on 55KRC, THE TALK Station.