Amy: Tonight, as if you needed more reasons, we have an eye-opening one that illustrates why keeping that money in the stock market during good times and bad times is absolutely critical. You're listening to "Simply Money" presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Hruby. It's easy to be in the market on days like today, right? Things are looking pretty good.

In fact, you might even be tempted to put more money into the stock market on days like that. But the question is, what is your staying power? How is your willpower when times are tough? Allworth's Chief Investment Officer, Andy Stout, joins us, as he does, every Monday. Andy, you've got an excellent illustration that we do wanna get into in a few months. But before we do that, talk to us about some major numbers that we got out last week, the April inflation report, and how you're feeling about that.

Andy: Thanks, Amy. The April inflation report came in a little bit better than expected. And that's the first time we've seen an encouraging print in quite some time. So headline or total consumer inflation increased 0.3% last month. What economists were looking for was a 0.4% increase. So you might think, "Well, just 0.1%, who cares?" But it is still encouraging. And when we look at the year-over-year change, the total inflation dropped from 3.5% to 3.4%. Now, we do pay a little bit more attention to core CPI.

So core inflation excludes food and energy prices because it's very volatile. And also, when we think about inflation and what it means, we think about how the Federal Reserve, which is our nation's central bank, will react to it. The Fed can't really do anything about energy prices and food prices. And that's why we focus on core, even though total inflation does matter. Make no mistake about that. Fortunately, core CPI fell to a three-year low at 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. Still not quite where we need to be from an overall inflation reading, but still an encouraging one nonetheless.

Steve: Clearly, the markets are happy. Wall Street loved the news. We hit all-time highs with the Dow crossing above $40,000 for the first time in its history.

Andy: Well, the Dow includes just 30 stocks. So it's very interesting. And I'm sure we all got our Dow 40,000 hats out over the weekend and make sure we were...

Steve: We celebrated.

Amy: How did you know?

Andy: Everybody was doing it. I just assumed. But it is just 30 stocks, keep in mind. Now, that's why we do like to look at other indexes like the S&P 500. That's 500 of the largest U.S. stocks. It also hit a new record last week. But again, there's other types of markets out there. There are small-cap U.S. stocks. By the way, they're still about 14% off of their 2021 record levels. But when we look outside the U.S., we do see similar stories. Fourteen of the largest stock markets, of the 20 largest, hit all-time highs last week. And that's certainly a very good thing when you think about the breadth of this rally that investors who are disciplined and patient were able to take part in.

Amy: You mentioned disciplined and patient, Andy. And for so many investors, that is easier said than done. One of the biggest jobs that we have is making sure that the investors that we work with do not make terrible decisions that they can't recover from, which is why I always appreciate your data and analysis because it always just reinforces what we already know, which is time in the market. And you have some more data out which really underscores that. Tell us about that.

Andy: So things I like to do on the weekend is spend time with my family and do some work in Microsoft Excel, studying the stock market, doing some analysis.

Amy: Just like we all like to do on the weekends, Excel.

Andy: Yeah. I also stained my deck over the weekend as well. So it was a pretty productive weekend. But probably the second most interesting thing over the weekend was looking through the market data and analyzing everything that's going on. And what I was looking at going back to 1950, how many times per decade the S&P 500, which is the 500 largest U.S. stocks, hit record highs because we've seen a lot this year, right? Or it might feel like a lot. There have been 23 records this year alone. And you might be thinking, "Wow, that's a reason to sell. Let's get out." But let's put it in a bigger picture context.

First, we hadn't had any record highs in either 2021...or I'm sorry, 2022 or 2023. Then we got a plethora of ones this year. And when we look at what's happened so far in this decade of the 2020s, 127 all-time highs. Now, that might seem like, oh, that's a lot. All right. Let's start to panic. Let's get out. I mean, markets are overvalued. Whatever you might think about, things that induce fear. But when we look back over a long period of time going back to 1950, this 127, it's pretty much in line with a typical decade. We've seen record highs ranging from 13 per year, that was in the 2000s, to... Or 13 per decade, excuse me, to 310 per decade.

So when we look at the average, it's about 165 record highs per decade. And the median is like 177. So having hit 127 so far, almost halfway through the year, well, it's really...it's not that big of a deal. It's pretty normal. And it's certainly not a reason to sell. It's certainly not a reason to get out because here's how I think about this, Amy, is that the stock market, it's a collection of individual companies. It's not just a number. It is a collection of companies and how they're performing and how they're doing.

And if investors were to sell every time you hit a record high, obviously, you would have missed out on tons of gains. But you'd also be betting against corporate greed. I mean, I, for one, fully expect these large companies to try to maximize their profits as much as they can. And that's ultimately what drives these stock gains. So I'm not about to bet against corporations trying to make as much money as they can. But what I wanna do is I wanna take part in that. And that's going to, obviously, help everyone out there. If you're investing and focusing on the long run, I mean, that really works in your favor.

Amy: You're listening to "Simply Money" presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Hruby and Andy Stout joining us tonight with maybe one of the most profound things you have said on the show ever. And you've said a lot of really smart things because we count on you for that, Andy. But talking about the fact that for anyone who gets nervous about investing in the stock market, the stock market is built on corporate greed. And that is so true, right? And these companies are built to grow. They are built on greed. And how could you ever bet against that? I love that point.

Steve: We can always find reasons to sell out of the market. And highlighting this research, this Excel work that you did over the weekend is extremely important because if you think, "Wow, the markets can't go any higher, it's not possible. I need to pull out and sit on the sidelines." Think about the numbers that we talked about today. That's an incredible amount of times that the markets have seen an all-time high.

And yeah, betting against the markets not going up, it's like betting against capitalism. So I like how you said, it's betting against corporate greed. That's a great point. Now, there is other research that you've done in the past that shows what happens or what could happen if you pull money out of the market and miss just a few days or a few weeks. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Andy: Yeah, when you look at just the big picture on the economy and thinking about what it means for your future, your financial security, there are definitely lots of data points out there that suggest you do not want to miss the upside. I mean, I can spout off quite a few. You just led me into, if you miss a few of the best days, it can certainly be very costly. So here's a hypothetical $1 million investment to S&P 500 large cap stocks. If you made it 20 years ago, basically, if you would have stayed fully invested, you'd have $6.3 million roughly.

Now, again, you can't necessarily invest in an index, but you could use an index fund to get to the same thing. If you miss just the 10 best days, that's going to be $2.9 million. So you just lost over $3 million by trying to get cute in investing. Now, I understand many of the best days do occur during bear markets. So the counter argument is, well, what if I missed the 10 worst days? Okay, well, that is true. But what happens in the instance when you see the volatility out there, when are you going to be able to get back in from an emotional standpoint?

Your emotions will take over. And what's gonna happen is, yeah, you might miss some of the worst days, but you're also gonna miss some of the best days. You'll likely end up millions of dollars short from where you would have been otherwise. It's really, really important that you stay invested because what happens, Steve, is that fear and greed will drive your investment decisions. Stocks go in a cycle. You start at the bottom when you're panicked, but that's a great time to buy.

The problem is you're so panic-stricken that you won't buy. And when things are at the top, you think it's the best case in the world. Sense of euphoria. And all you do is want to buy. But what happens is you tend to buy high and sell low. And that's what hurts you over the long run. You're so much better off just getting that investment mix right, focusing on the financial plan, and relying on corporate greed, just to be quite honest.

Amy: Yeah, no, I love it. I think it's an excellent point, Andy, and one that many investors should come back to the next time they get nervous, right? Because there's headlines out there every day saying, you know, recession, worst markets, wherever. It's coming. It's all coming. The sky is falling. Yet, if you pull your money out, what you are betting against is corporate greed at its root. And I think that's an excellent perspective.

Here's the all-worth advice. The moment you wanna panic and get out of the market, remember, the S&P 500 has hit a record high more than 1200 times since 1950. Next, a very important segment for you. We've got the warning signs of a bad investment. 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 Hruby. If you can't listen to our show every night, you do not have to miss a thing that we talk about because we have a daily podcast for you. Just search "Simply Money." It's right there on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcast.

Coming up at 6.43, retirement regrets we've seen others have that we wanna make sure you know about. If you are someone who is living on Social Security, about to claim Social Security, then you are already very aware that this announcement every year is pretty major. We're talking about COLA, or the cost of living adjustment that's built into this program that's kind of trying to help you absorb a little bit of the pain of inflation. A little bit.

Steve: Yeah, or does it just offset your Medicare premium going up?

Amy: Same thing. Yeah, right.

Steve: That's a whole other subject. So the COLA for 2025 could be about 3.2%, which is the same increase as this year. That's calculated based on the CPI for urban workers, which more heavily weighs on things like transportation, food, apparel, and other expenses that would be bought by urban non-retirees. No matter where that number comes from, 3.2% compared to what we've seen in the average over time of 2.6%, that's kind of good, right?

Amy: I guess, yeah. I mean, for anyone, and this is my concern, those who live solely on Social Security, and that's like 90% of Americans say Social Security makes up 100% of your income in retirement. I think about 40% of retirees say it makes up about 40%, which is really for half or more of their income. So 40% of Americans, it makes up half or more of their income. This program was never designed to do that. It was only ever designed to replace 40% of your income when you were working.

And my concern then is if you're relying on this too much, this cost of living adjustment becomes too big of a deal. Do the math. It's not a lot of money. And you started this segment off by making an excellent point, Steve. Every year, Medicare goes up, right? The cost of your Medicare premiums goes up. And so most of the time, it's like what the government giveth with one hand, it taketh away with another hand.

So it's not like you're gonna see this huge increase in your quality of life as the result of this cost of living adjustment. But we have also seen in recent years north of 8%, 3% is good and bad news, right? It's not as much, but it also means the overall cost of inflation is coming back down. So for those of you who are on social security, of course, we will continue to keep an eye on this for you. There are what we would consider good investments, and there are also very bad investments.

Unfortunately, for us, Steve, I think the bad investments get the headline, get the lion's share of talk in social circles when you're out. And so, tonight, we just want to get to some warning signs, right? If you are thinking about an investment, someone's talking about it, you're reading about it, and any of these flags are flying above this investment, we would say maybe you need to think twice, think long and hard, or find yourself a fiduciary financial advisor that you can run this by first.

Steve: Unfortunately, good investments can be a little bit boring. Just have a diversified portfolio, domestic, international, stock bond, large cap, small cap, mid cap, just a variety. Some are gonna go up in the year, some are gonna go down. It is what it is. And then they have the loud investments. And that's what we wanna talk a little bit about today. And that's, first of all, if there's a sense of urgency, you need to buy, buy, buy, buy, buy because the stock is going up, up, up. What's that fueled by? Greed. Should you make decisions solely based on greed? The answer is no.

Amy: I covered a Ponzi schemer here in Cincinnati years ago, Glenn Gilemo. And one of the things that kind of pulled people in was, first of all, they would be at basketball games, they would be at dinner, they would be out with friends, people who they already trusted, right, people who they already liked, who would then start talking about these amazing returns, zero percent risk.

So there's so many things, first of all, wrong with this. But there was always a sense of, hey, you should get in, and you should get in right now. You don't wanna miss this. And really smart people, right, who you would think would never fall for something like this, jumped in. They didn't think about it. They didn't run it by someone else. They just jumped in because, to your point, greed, they didn't want to miss out.

Steve: Yeah, there's so much emotion tied to investing. And for folks that want to find the easy way out, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't. So if everybody is buy, buy, buy, maybe that's not the right time to hop in. Another way to look at that would be if an investment advisor pressures you to buy a particular investment. I'm talking about pressures because there's different types of advisors. We've talked about this over the years.

Your fiduciary financial planner, they're not necessarily getting commission. They could be getting commission, but they're gonna disclose the heck out of it, if that's the case. If you're working with an advisor in quotations that works only on commissions, and they're trying to sell you a loaded mutual fund, for example, is the only solution to building your investment strategy, maybe that's something you should take a second look at or pump the brakes on.

Amy: You're listening to "Simply Money" presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner, along with Steve Hruby, as we talk about warning signs. Good investments versus bad investments. How can you tell the difference? Another one is if someone comes to you and tells you this is the next big thing. I was actually just with a friend recently who has gone to work for a pharma startup. Of course, he was saying, "You need to get in on this. It's gonna be big. It's gonna be big." I'm thinking, "Oh, boy, here we go. I've heard this before." I, of course, knew better. I've been doing this for a long time, but there was a crowd of people there. I almost wanted to stand up and say, "As much as I love him, please, please, please don't do this."

Someone telling you that it's the next big thing, you thinking that you've got information about something, it can all go very, very wrong. Slow and steady. Right? Warren Buffett, the smartest investor of all time, he's not ever jumping on the next big thing. He is doing his research. He is making sure he fully understands that investment. He's making sure it makes sense to hold it for a long time. When I think about the next big thing, Steve, I always think of crypto.

Steve: Yeah, that's a great example. Lots of people asked me when it was brand new, "Hey, is this the thing that I need to get in right now?" But to add to that, if you don't know anything about it, that's another reason why you might not wanna hop on board. If you can't explain what it is you're investing in, you don't know enough about it to have any business putting money into it. And crypto is another great example of both of those.

Amy: Huge warning sign if someone tells you this investment is risk-free. There's nothing risk-free about investing. Some have larger risks than others, but these are promises like this is just like, hmm, sounds too good to be true. It almost always, always is. And whether it's a Ponzi scheme that we have seen here locally, or so many times we've just covered these on the show and it's like, "Oh, gosh, that should have raised a lot of red flags." That's, of course, too good to be true. Yet, when you feel like you were presented with this amazing opportunity and that greed kicks in, it can be really difficult to walk away from that.

Steve: Yeah, there's different kinds of risk. Market risk is what most people are terrified of because that's where the investments can go up and down very, very quickly. Purchasing power risk is another way to say inflation risk. That's if you don't take enough market risk, then your investments will lose purchasing power over time as inflation rises. There's always some kind of risk involved with investing.

So risk-free, steer clear if somebody's trying to sell you something that is risk-free. All the gains with none of the losses. Another more generalization here is if the investment doesn't align with your goals. So an example of this would be more tied to your risk tolerance, your time frame until you need to access the money. But when we're younger, we're in the accumulation phase of retirement planning, it's okay to be driving down the fast lane in the highway.

If something happens with your investments, you have plenty of time to make up the difference. But if you are knocking on the door to retirement, what are you doing in the fast lane? Maybe pull back the risk a little bit. You're about to get off the highway. Don't put all of your money in something that is highly aggressive when you need to access it sooner rather than later.

Amy: Here's the Allworth advice. The best investments are often really boring ones that require you to have years of patience. But history shows boring is actually best. Coming up next, we're going to tackle an issue many of you might be feeling in the workplace right now. Are you burnout? 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 Hruby. Are you bringing home from work more than a paycheck? This is the not-so-great side of maybe what you're bringing home. Are you burnout? Joining us tonight is Julie Balky, our good friend, Julie on the job, and expert in all things in the workplace. Julie, according to research, more and more workers are just feeling done, burnt out.

Julie: Yeah. There's so many factors that go into this. I saw a stat by men's...it's a man's magazine, maybe called "Men's Journal," where they had polled 71% of respondents said that workplace stress contributed significantly to a breakup. Yeah. When you look at why that is, there's a few things going on. When companies have layoffs, let's say I'm gonna lay off 1,000 people, that work doesn't go away. What happens is it gets distributed to the people who are there, still there, who are told, "Oh, you're lucky you weren't on the layoff list." And they're thinking, "Am I? Really?"

And so we've got more work being done by less people. We already know that a lot of businesses can't fill openings. So there was already extra work piled on people. Now with layoffs, that work gets piled on even more. And if you are a high performer, someone who always says yes, guess what? Your prize is you get more.

And so just the nature of work, nature of the workplace has changed. Then you've got the 24/7 nature of work that technology gives us. Thanks so much. And then you have the younger generations who are...they're not there. They have very clear boundaries around what they will do work-wise. So there's, and you add, it's just there's so many... There's just so many people are burnt out from life in general. But for a lot of people, work is a big cause of that.

Steve: So you talked about some of the causes here, but what are the symptoms? If you're questioning and you're self-reflecting and you're thinking, "I'm tired, I'm tired all the time. My workload has gone up. I'm always connected." What are the actual symptoms of burnout? What does that look like to the everyday person if we're suffering from this?

Julie: Well, it can look like lack of motivation, depression, overindulgence, things like gambling, smoking, drinking, edibles. Can look like not having healthy relationships, snapping at the people you care about. Those relationships start to fray. And so when you start to feel like, I don't want to get up on Monday morning anymore. I can't go on. I can't do this. And so when you think about our lives, we used to be able to sector them out. And because of technology, we can't anymore.

And so that idea that you can get a break at 5:30 until the next morning at 8 is gone. And for some people, that was the last thread. That was, okay, I can put the old metaphorical briefcase down at 5, 5:30, 6:00 and not think about work again till the next day. And so I would look at your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health, your relationships. How do you feel? Are you living a life that says, "I need to survive these five days to get to the weekend?" If any of those things resonate with you, you've got to make a change, which then comes the next step, which is how do I know what to change? And that's because we can't change everything all at once. But when you get to that point, you do have to start making some changes.

Amy: Julie, as we talk through, and I think there's probably so many people listening tonight that are nodding their heads along with your, "Gosh, this has impacted relationships. I am stressed out all the time." What can you do? You're right. Technology is there. We're constantly connected. So as an employee, if we are feeling these things, what are steps that we can take, some practical things that we can do to try to make the situation better for ourselves?

Julie: The first thing you have to embrace is this thought. No one cares more about my life and my career than I do. And if you're waiting for somebody to come in and fix it for you, be it a leader who says, "Oh, Amy, you're working so hard. I'm gonna take something off your plate," good luck with that. And so, first of all, you have to recognize that you can't sit and be bitter and seethe without being willing to take some kind of action.

And so the first thing you have to figure out, so let's say you walked into the doctor and you're like, "I feel like crap." The first thing the doctor is gonna ask you is, "Tell me more. Where do you hurt? What hurts?" So you've got to get to the root cause, at least one of the root causes, for why you feel so bad. And is it because you've got a leader that is just horribly toxic and micromanages and belittles you? Okay, that could be it.

Could it be because you're in the wrong job? Could it be that you're in a good job that you're really, really good at, but you're tired of it? Like, you've been doing it for so long, you're so good at it, that your organization pats you on the head and keeps you there. Is it relationship-related? Is it the fact that you're eating a bunch of crap food and never moving your body? What is it?

So all of those things go together. And so when you figure out what's not working in your life, you have to start picking them off one at a time. What can I change? So work-related, if you say, "Okay, this leader that I report to, we do not see...we don't see eye to eye." All right. Can you move within your organization to another department? Could you transfer? Is this leader maybe gonna be in for a couple of years and then move on? Is it your commute? Is it your co-workers? Do you feel unappreciated and underpaid? You've got to identify the source or sources of your discontent before you're gonna go out and start fixing all the wrong things.

Steve: So I saw some numbers recently that were a little shocking to me. Four and 5 employees, so 80% feel at least sometimes burned out in their roles. Gallup estimated that employee disengagement cost U.S. companies about $1.9 trillion in lost productivity per year. We've talked about what individuals can do, and I think that's a great start to take responsibility for making some of these changes. What about companies? What can they do to make sure that their employees don't get burnt out?

Julie: What is so frustrating to me is that Gallup is pretty much the gold standard for this type of research. And the employee disengagement numbers have been very high for decades. And what's happened is... Yeah, what's happened is, though, what's different now is that as boomers and Gen Xers, we're like, "Well, it's just work. I'm not supposed to like it." But we also had the time to disconnect. We could disconnect at 5:00.

What's interesting, though, is that employers, they see these numbers, they see these productivity numbers, they see all of employee disengagement, the effect of it is everything from your ability to attract and retain talent, to what is your reputation in the market, to how hard are people working for you. And there has to be... The problem is it's not just a switch that you flip. It has to be an overall cultural overhaul. And the first thing leaders have to do is recognize that those numbers are real.

And yes, they don't... It's not show up on a spreadsheet. But if you've got disengaged people, then you aren't... Just pushing them harder is not going to work. It's gonna drive them out the door. But what's so interesting is, and I hear these stories over and over, and I experienced this back when I was in human resources many, many years ago. We did an employee survey and the result... A culture survey. In other words, the question about culture is what's it like to work here? What's it like to work here? I mean, that's the most simple question to get to culture. So we did an employee survey and the leaders of the organization saw the results and said, "Hide those and never talk about them again." And yeah, at that moment I said, "I got to get out of HR. I can't do this anymore."

Amy: And the real takeaway should be that the company looks at that and says, "What do we need to change? How do we bring people in and let them feel fulfilled and not burn out?" Great advice, great insights, as always, from our good friend, Julie Bauke, Julie on the job. 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 Hruby. Do you have a financial question you want us to tackle for you? There's a red button you can click on where you're listening to the show. It's right there on the iHeart app. Record your question and it's coming straight to us. And straight ahead, are you a problem returner? We're gonna tell you what that is, what you need to know about it, and how it might be affecting you.

When it comes to retiring, we are, as you know, probably for listening for a long time, we're huge proponents of financial plans and planning. And what we see too often is those who do not have plan are caught off guard, right? There are lots of regrets. There's lots of things that they miss. And tonight, we're gonna highlight some of those things that we've seen.

Hopefully, these are not things that you will be missing in your plan. And one is understanding where taxes are going to go in retirement. Steve, it's interesting to me, one thing that often catches people off guard is, and there's a complicated formula for this, but you likely will be taxed on social security. People feel like that's really unfair, but it's the reality.

Steve: Most people are, in fact. If your income is over a certain threshold, it's $44,000, $45,000 married, filing jointly. And that's your provisional income. So it's a combination of different types of income. But moral of the story is most people pay about 85%. They pay taxes on 85% of their social security benefits. That doesn't mean that you lose 85% of your social security benefit. It just means that it's added to your income used for calculating your taxes.

So a lot of people don't realize, they go into retirement thinking that magically their taxes are gonna be lower. For example, they've been told that maybe they're only gonna spend 80% of what they spent when they were working as they transitioned into retirement. But that's not always accurate. When we actually build financial plans, when you work with a fiduciary financial planner to map out your financial future, understanding what your financial goals are and how you're gonna pay for them, oftentimes, as you enter retirement, you're in your go-go years of retirement, you're getting out, you're seeing the world, you're doing things, visiting grandchildren, whatever that might be, your expenses can certainly go up. And if your expenses go up, you can expect your taxes to go up as well.

Amy: We talk about taxes. I think many people kind of just default to thinking about tax preparation. That's what you do for April. But there is a strategy involved. We call this tax planning. This happens year-round. And it is especially important the closer you get to retirement and when you get in retirement. Something that we do for a lot of the investors that we work with is, you know, can we kind of run this through a program where we can say, hey, here's ways that we think that you can, I love how you always say this, poke Uncle Sam in the eye with a stick by bringing things down.

And it's strategies. But it's something that you have to be thinking about year-round. Sometimes it's a Roth conversion. It can be how you take distributions, right, once you get to the age where you're supposed to take those required minimum distributions. But lots of strategies that you can use in order to keep more money in your pocket and less going to Uncle Sam.

Steve: Yeah, it's also important to understand how social security works. There's a lot of folks that have regrets about collecting too early, for example. Full retirement age, at this point, if you're born 1960 or later, is 67. Sixty-seven years old is when you get your full benefit. You can collect as early as 62, but you're gonna get reduced benefit for the rest of your life if you collect early.

Amy: Another thing, and this is something that many people don't think through, often because you're focusing so much on the financial aspect of retirement, but your social circle. You got to look at yourself in the mirror when you get close to retirement and ask how much of your life, how much of your socialization comes from work, your co-workers, your colleagues.

This is one that slaps a lot of people on the face. You've been working all these years. You're used to meetings. You're used to that schedule. You're used to those people that are sitting in the office or the cubicle next to you. And all of a sudden, that's all gone. What do you do with your day? Who do you talk to? Unless you're nourishing other kinds of social circles, this can be a really difficult transition.

Steve: We've had entire segments talking about the effects of loneliness. Now, there are those people that do enjoy solitude and get a lot of joy out of peace and quiet, but making sure that you have some kind of a social network. Without it, you could find yourself very bored. And in some circumstances, if you feel cut out, left out, that's where we fall into a situation where it's the equivalent of your heart health being affected as if you're smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, for example.

So making sure that you have something to do in retirement is very important. The other thing to talk about here is understanding that not every advisor is actually a fiduciary. Now, this can be surprising for a lot of folks out there. You think, you know, "I meet with a financial advisor. They're gonna have my best interests front and center." But that is not always the case.

Amy: I can think of countless examples of this. One of them, a dear family friend who, for decades, had been working with someone that they thought was a financial advisor, right? They sort of put themselves out there as that. It was even before the word fiduciary was a big deal. No one knew to ask that, you know, and come years later, and they've been sold whole life insurance policies. They've been sold annuities. They have been sold products, not investments that weren't necessary. And the realization that, you know, has been had recently is if I had just invested this money, I would have had so much more.

And I think there is a terrible feeling of like distrust, right? "I trusted this person and I thought they were helping me, and they did the exact opposite of that." Please, please make sure you are working with a fiduciary financial advisor. That's incredibly important when you're planning your retirement. Here's the Allworth advice. Knowledge is power. It's extremely important when it comes to preparing for retirement.

Coming up next, do you buy stuff and then constantly return it? Retailers could soon come after you. We'll tell you what's up next. 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 Hruby. Steve, are you or is anyone in your family a problem returner?

Steve: What do you think? Me? No.

Amy: You don't even buy anything.

Steve: There is somebody very close to me in my life that is, I would say, a problem returner. There's boxes sitting around just waiting to be returned at all times, I would say. There is a constant cycle of things that my wife needs to return and sometimes just sits on.

Amy: So you weren't gonna say who it was, but I believe we might have figured this out.

Steve: Well, it's my wife.

Amy: Listen, what you have to think about too is these returns come at a cost. In fact, a huge expense to stores. Some research was recently done and says the cost of returning is about 40% of the original price. And then you think about how many, you know, 10 years ago, people were not buying clothes online. Now people are buying a lot of clothes online. Well, you can't touch it. You can't feel it. You can't try it on until it gets to your house.

And so the issue then is so many people returning so many things. In the U.S., nearly $750 billion of what's bought actually gets returned. And so stores are trying to figure out, "Okay, you're gonna return things from time to time. It's not always going to work out. But how do we identify who is constantly returning things? Because maybe we're not gonna be so easy for those people to return anymore."

Steve: Yeah, I guess there's software that exists where stores may actually track some of this on an individual basis. And you could be told, "No. We're not taking that back. That would be devastating." I mean, there's some grace here, I understand. If I shop, which is very infrequently, men's sizes are easy. That's the size I put it on. It fits. You know, when women shop online, I look at my wife here as the example, you can get one size at one place and it is completely different than the same size in another place? I don't get that.

Amy: Well, and I think as stores try to figure out this issue, I really see it from both ends. Because think about it. If there are people out there returning things left and right, it's costing the stores. Are they gonna take that on the chin? No. We're all gonna end up paying for this problem. And I have a friend who opened up her trunk one time and I was like, "What is all of this stuff?" It was stuff to 15 different stores that needed to be returned. It stressed me out just looking at it.

I don't want a to-do list of stuff that's that long, which is why I will try stuff on in the store. I try not to buy something unless I think I'm gonna keep it. But yeah, stores are trying to identify, if they think you are a problem returner, it's not gonna be as easy. The issue is now lawsuits have been filed about that software saying it's bad information, it's improperly labeling people.

Stay tuned on this one because as they try to track down, it's just a thorny, thorny issue. Thanks for listening tonight.

You've been listening to "Simply Money" presented by Allworth Financial here on 55KRC. We are THE Talk Station.