Amy: Tonight, is this it? Are we finally through with rising interest rates and what to do if we actually are? You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner along with Steve Sprovach. Gosh, you know, it's hard to say. Day-to-day things change around here and as we've been looking at this economic data, when you think about what we were predicting a year ago, or a year and a half ago, or a month ago, it really changes on the daily. But I think the one thing that the Federal Reserve, our nation's central bank, seems to have in their favor is that the economic data that continues to come out over the last couple of months, definitely several weeks, seems to be pointing in the same direction that maybe most of the heavy lifting is behind us.

Steve: Yeah, let's put this in perspective. The last time we had kind of runaway inflation, Amy, was late '70s, or early '80s. So, our lesson out of that is, okay, to tame inflation, we have to have a brutal recession, in that case, brutal back-to-back recessions. So, everybody's assuming, "Okay, we've got kind of serious inflation again." I guess we're gonna have brutal inflation or brutal recession.

Amy: Recession.

Steve: Yeah. And we got a jobs report out on Friday that was really good. It was kind of a Goldilocks report. And what it's telling us, Amy, is, you know what, we just might get through this and knock down inflation, maybe even without a recession. Let me explain a little bit. The jobs report that came out Friday, yeah, there were 187,000 jobs created. That's a little more than we want, which normally is good news. But what the Federal Reserve wants to see is a slowing economy. That means they did their job. The economy's slowing. Inflation will then come down. Everybody's happy. Well, that number was a little higher, but we got more data on previous months, where they were able to go ahead and revise the numbers as more data comes in and they get better and better numbers. And those jobs numbers from the previous two months were revised downward by 110,000 jobs. So, in other words, the economy is slowing down. On top of that, unemployment went up not because a lot of people are out of work. There aren't massive layoffs. There are just more people entering the workplace. So, unemployment is 3.8% from the 3.5%, it was that. In other words, the economy is slowing down, but it's slowing down gradually. There aren't mass layoffs, and this is a good trend and exactly what the Federal Reserve wants to see.

Amy: A year, year and a half ago, it looked like there was the slimmest of chance that this would happen. And as time has gone on, it just looks like, "Okay, this is becoming more and more likely." And I wanna talk about the point that you just made, Steve, which is more people entering the job force, more people looking for jobs right now that had been on the sidelines. I think there's a number of reasons for that. And if you look at personal savings rate and personal spending rates, right, people have less in savings right now, all that extra money that everyone was aflash with during the pandemic, as you and I predicted at some point. We were just...

Steve: We knew it wasn't gonna last. Exactly.

Amy: Oh, we were gonna spend our ways, you know, right out of that into, you know, a point where now there's, of course, record debt and all of those things again. So, people who maybe were sitting on the sidelines not looking for jobs because you just had cash sitting around, you're likely running out of that cash quickly. And so starting to look for jobs again, and as the result of that, bosses, employers have more options, right? There was the longest time there where the labor market was so tight, and you could go in and ask for a raise and you were likely going to get it. And if you didn't, you could easily go left, right, center, anywhere you looked for another job because there were so many opportunities. Well, now, things are starting to shift back that momentum where employers have more candidates looking for jobs, which is kind of loosening that labor market that has been so tight. And so, it kind of happened in a different way, right? We didn't have a recession where there were mass layoffs. And so, we just had people getting back into the workforce, creating more opportunities for employers to hire. And as a result, we kind of ended up in the same place, maybe, just in a roundabout way.

Steve: Yeah, I don't think we can underestimate the impact the pandemic had on the labor market.

Amy: Yes.

Steve: I mean, it was a big deal. When have we shut down, literally shut down the U.S. economy? I mean, that's what we did almost overnight. And when you do something like that, you don't know how it's gonna play out and you certainly don't know how it's going to ramp back up. And the answer is, well, it's gonna ramp back up in fits and starts, and it's not gonna happen overnight. And so we had all these supply chain issues. We had a lot of people that said, "Yeah, you know what, I kind of, like, being out of work. This work's good." Until, you're out of money.

Amy: I kind of, like, sitting on my couch eating Cheetos all day long.

Steve: Exactly.

Amy: Kind of fun.

Steve: I'm sorry, you had [crosstalk 00:05:03].

Amy: I just threw that out there as a thing.

Steve: Okay. But literally, I mean, we've got data to support this. The San Francisco Fed just literally, just today came out with a report that said, "Excess savings in this country are pretty much depleted and should be depleted by the end of the quarter." So, in other words, all that money that you saved up by not going out or not traveling, or all the above during the pandemic, you pretty much run through that money and now you're going back to work. And instead of having two people for every job, it's starting to get back to normal. It's starting to get back to, "You know what, I think I'm gonna look for a job. I hope I get it because I'm interviewing with 10 other people." This is normal. This is what the economy should be. It took us a couple of years to get here, but we've never gone through it before. So, how would you know what to expect?

Amy: You're listening to "Simply Money," presented by Allworth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner along with Steve Sprovach. As we talk about the latest data coming out, jobs numbers, the labor market, showing us that while maybe a year ago, there were all these economists predicting that the sky is falling, it's going to be the worst recession our country has ever seen. I mean, I'm thinking back, Steve, through all the headlines that we talked about, laughed about, made fun of here on the show. But a lot of them were very doom and gloom about getting ready to go through maybe the worst thing that we'd seen as a country and our economy since the Great Depression. And we really haven't seen any of that. We've seen actually a lot of success out of the Federal Reserve. If you wanna talk about charting a path here, raising interest rates in order to bring down inflation. And at the same time, the economy not going into this deep, deep recession that a lot of people were saying, you know, I think about earlier this year, they were talking about a 50% chance of a recession, a 30% chance of a recession. Now, there's a lot of economists that are saying, 10%, maybe less than 10%.

Steve: Well, Goldman Sachs has been pretty outspoken about, "Hey, here's what we think the odds of a recession are this year." And if you go back just to March, they were saying 35% chance, which was better than where it was at earlier. And a lot of other people are saying, "Oh, it's a give me first quarter this year, we're gonna have a recession and then, you know, mark it down." They're down to 15... Goldman Sachs is saying 15% chance of a recession. In other words, 85% chance that we're not going to have a recession. That's pretty darn good. And they're not the type to go out on a limb based on flimsy data. So, they've got a lot of reasons to support their thought process. And I'll tell you what, Amy, Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, if he comes out of this deal and we don't go into a recession, he should be up for the Nobel Prize.

Amy: Seriously.

Steve: I mean, that's pretty darn good. So, you know, it's one thing to talk about, but how do you use it to your advantage? If we don't go into a recession, and this is pretty much it on interest rate hikes, I mean, the Fed meets again the 19th and 20th of this month. If they don't raise rates, which it doesn't look like they're going to, this may be it. We may be done hiking interest rates. So, where do we go? What do we do as investors, as consumers, to take advantage of, okay, maybe this is it with hiking interest rates?

Amy: Well, and to your point when you're talking about maybe that we're at the end of this, there was a 71% chance of another hike, literally, a week ago. And as this new information has come out, now we're down to less than a 40% chance of another quarter-point rate hike this year. And so, it looks like maybe we've come out of it. And listen, there could be more data out tomorrow that says 95% chance and that's the...

Steve: The data changes, our opinions are gonna change. No promise.

Amy: Exactly. And then we've seen that a million times over the past couple of years, just all over the place. But at this point, it looks like, yes, maybe we've come out ahead and, you know, not in a recession. And we don't maybe need additional rate hikes. Then, to your point, what do you do? Right? How can you take advantage of this? If you have kept your money in that checking accounts, and it's just been growing and growing and growing, right? The money that's not invested. If you have not sought out a high-yield savings account, a CD, something like, that that's paying a higher interest rate than 0.001%, like we got used to before and during the pandemic. Well, now's the time to seek that out, and I'm talking about right now.

Steve: Yeah, when interest rates are going up, you don't wanna be locked in. I mean, you don't want everybody else to be getting a higher interest rate than you. When interest rates are going up, you wanna see your interest going up. Well, guess what? That's what a money market is. So, when interest rates are going up, you wanna keep your excess savings in a money market, FDIC insured, so there's no risk, and interest rates go from 2.5 to 3. You're gonna get 3 and go from 3 to 3.5. You're gonna get 3.5. But when interest rates have peaked, that's when you wanna start thinking about locking in at least a portion, the money you don't think you need for a certain period of time unless some crazy emergency happens. And I, actually, saw a billboard over the weekend for 5.25% on a six-month CD, over 5%. I mean, that's incredible. Now, that might be the outlier, but you know what? Should you lock in for one year, two years and get 4.5%, 5% something like that? Well, you know what? If inflation gets back down to two or three, you're actually seeing a real rate of return if you're getting that much return on your deposits in a CD, or on a Treasury bill, or on some other type of fixed income in a month investment.

Amy: Well, we talked so many times as the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates about the lag time of the effects of that. And one of the things that has lagged greatly is that the interest rates on these kinds of accounts, these high yield accounts, these money market accounts have lagged greatly, but now we're at a point where we're starting to see, to your point, north of 5%. That would have been unheard of just a year, year and a half ago. And now we've got these rates. Now's the time to take advantage of them before they start falling once again. Here's the Allworth advice. Always make sure your financial plan is set up in a way where your investments aren't beholden to outside factors that are completely out of your control. Coming up next, we have a headline that has us ready to pick a fight on your behalf, what you need to know. 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's Sprovach. If you can't listen to our show every night, you don't have to miss any of the money advice that we have because 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've got some retirement planning advice for the many who make the real decisions in the household. You may not always direct the conversation, but maybe you should. We've got advice for you. All right. What if you had less than a dime in your bank account? Yet, you were able to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars in shares of some major companies. What are we talking about here? Well, some dude who actually works at like an Aunti-Anne's Pretzel place had nine cents, nine cents in his account, yet was able to, literally, buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of company stocks.

Steve: Well, at least he wasn't overdrawn until he started writing the bad checks. This is amazing. And, you know, they wouldn't name the brokerage firm involved.

Amy: Smart.

Steve: I'm sure the brokerage firm begged the reporter not to name them. But, you know, here's a guy doesn't know... No, I shouldn't say he doesn't have a dime to his name, but he, literally, doesn't have a dime to his name. He's got nine cents.

Amy: Almost a dime, not quite.

Steve: And he goes ahead and writes a million dollars worth of bad checks, deposits them in a brokerage account that he just set up, which then allows them and this is why I think they don't wanna be named to go ahead, "Okay. Yeah, the checks haven't cleared yet, which obviously they weren't gonna clear," and says, "Well, we'll let you go ahead and use 20% of that money to buy whatever you want." So, he goes out and he buys shares and Tesla, GameStop, and Nvidia, whatever he feels like, you know. This is a guy, like you said, working at an Aunti-Annie's. And they caught on to him pretty darn quick because those checks bounced all the way back to the bank. And it just amazes me that he was able to, literally, buy a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of shares on exchanges with bad checks, at least for a little while.

Amy: How much you wanna bet that whoever was in charge of that sort of that component of that brokerage firm is answering some tough questions today?

Steve: Tell me the checks and balances we have against this happening again.

Amy: Something went very wrong. They caught on. They did freeze this account. They liquidated all of the holdings before he made any profits. But, I mean, this guy could...

Steve: He made seven grand. He made seven grand. It's like, you know what I mean?

Amy: Off of nine cents, technically, you know?

Steve: Yeah, maybe somebody should hire this guy. I don't know.

Amy: He claims it was just a joke and he never really thought of it as fraud. He's spending money that he doesn't have of someone else's. I have a feeling that brokerage firm thinks about it a little differently he does. But I'm gonna file this one under stupid human financial tricks. Don't try this one. If you don't have a dime to your name, don't try to buy several hundred thousand dollars worth of stock. Not gonna end well.

Steve: No.

Amy: Here's something else that's not ending well. It's a headline that we found in MarketWatch. And we hope we found it and we hope that you didn't because it's downright ridiculous.

Steve: And we like MarketWatch. It's a good website.

Amy: This morning, the first website that I checked was MarketWatch. It's the first thing I go to every day. And I'm not even singling them out as it's MarketWatch because we find headlines like this across all reputable financial websites. But here's the headline. "Here are the odds that the stock market will crash." Crash? That's scary.

Steve: That'll get your retention, right?

Amy: Yeah, right. Absolutely.

Steve: And, you know, it's an interview with the CEO of a company called Hedgeye Risk Management. Okay. So, right there...

Amy: Have you heard of him before? Nope.

Steve: Well, no, no, but I've got a red flag and most people in my industry do, but the average person would not notice anything. Hedgeye, what's a hedge? A hedge is somebody who is trying to make money when other normal mainstream investments are losing money. Okay, watch them go up...

Amy: You're betting against the market, right?

Steve: Yeah. That's a hedge. The definition of a hedge is something going up when something else is going down. So, already I'm thinking, "Okay, this guy is gonna talk about what's gonna happen, how his company can make you money." And you see this a lot with gold. How his company can make you money when the market goes down. And the whole concept of this article on a very reputable website is similarities of the stock market today versus the big crash in 1987. Huh? Where does that come from?

Amy: And what I love even more, or we hate even more, is that when he looks at the similarities to 1987, which if you think back, that's Black Monday. I mean...

Steve: That was a big deal.

Amy: We talk about that day several times a year as one of just the bottom was falling out of the market. It was scary, scary to be an investor during that time. And here's a CEO throwing this around. There's a lot of similarities to 1987. He says, and here's one, "The markets quick start in January and people are in love with stocks."

Steve: Oh, okay. So, the market goes up in January...

Amy: That's literally...

Steve: ...you're setting up for crash? Come on.

Amy: It's like 8 out of 10 years, you have those two things going on. People like stocks when the stock market is up and if the stock market happens to be up in January, well, that happens all the time. Not every year, but a lot of years that happens. And so for this guy to make the correlation between that major crash and where we are right now based on those two sets of circumstances is, absolutely, insane and really frustrating to me.

Steve: Well, it should be frustrating, and I think it's kind of financial pornography in all seriousness. I mean, it disgusted me that somebody is trying to compare what's going on today to 1987. I was a broker. I wasn't right involved. Right in the middle of it, the stock market dropped over 22% in one day. It was literally the original flash crash, and there are still arguments over what caused it. My pet theory is okay, this was the beginning of algorithms and computerized trading. And I think that the system just broke down. That's my guess. By the end of the year, this was in October. By the end of the year, the market was back at break even. So, I mean, this was over really quick, but 22% in one day. I mean, they were interrupting the news over it. So, for somebody to go out there and make claims like what's going on today is eerily reminiscent of what happened right before the '87 crash, I think is just completely irresponsible, and it shouldn't be given the time of day.

Amy: So, let's look at what people who we would say are responsible are saying about this, right? There's an ongoing survey by Yale University and they claim that 66% of investors think that the risk of a crash in the next six months is 10%. Ten percent is not like imminent crashing, right? It's not the kind of headlines that we've been talking about. No one wants to see 10%, but then let's look at what Harvard is saying, right? Harvard has been doing a study, and there's also three scientists from Boston University about the probability of this happening. Point three-three, not 33%, 0.33% of a crash happening in the near future.

Steve: Well, they were looking at actual data. I didn't like the Yale study because they're asking investors. And you know what? I think 10% of the people out there are just pessimistic anyway, whether it's, you know...

Amy: Well, think about what we came through.

Steve: ...stocks going down or whatever.

Amy: Well, we just had the pandemic, right? We had stock, we had a recession, a month-long recession, and then we had another one, you know.

Steve: Crazy inflation.

Amy: Yeah. And so we've had things all over the place. So, I think it makes sense that maybe a lot of investors are pessimistic about maybe where we're going, but, yeah, I like your point. You know, the research coming out of Harvard is looking at not people's feelings and emotions about the market, they're looking at actual data and it points to a less than 1% probability of this happening. Yet, here's the headline in MarketWatch talking about odds of a crash happening, see what makes you think they must be pretty high.

Steve: Yeah. And the average person is gonna look at that and say, "Well, these people must know what they're talking about. Maybe I should cash out." Bad choice.

Amy: Here's the Allworth advice. Don't let headlines like these scare you. If you see words like crash, the whole story could be completely exaggerated like this one was. Next, we're talking about one of the most important aspects of estate planning with our expert. 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 Sprovach. You think you might be prepared to lose that loved one, but for those who've lost someone who's really close to you, you know that sometimes grief is just all-consuming. And so, tonight we are joined by our estate planning expert from the law firm of Wood and Lamping, Mark Reckman, with some cautionary tales about things that he's actually seen people do making really bad decisions because they're just grieving. Mark, this happens all the time, but you've seen some pretty bad examples of this.

Mark: Well, that's right. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen often but you're right, it does happen here and there almost all the time. And over the last four decades, I've seen a lot of families that are at a loss, it's always hard. But lately, it seems I've run into an unusual number of families with really internal issues. So, I thought I would tell you three stories. The first story, I've got a mother who had two sons. One son is local and one son lived out of town. The local son lived with mom, and by the way, he's mentally disabled. He doesn't work. He lives off Social Security disability and his mother's support. So, mom died this year. Her will leaves the house to the out-of-town son, not the disabled son who lives in the house. And this was a deliberate choice for a good reason. The plan was to preserve and protect the asset so that the son living there would have the use of it, and so in the end, the other son would have received the value of the house when the brother died. Well, the disabled son simply cannot handle the loss and because of his mental illness, he can't really understand why his mother didn't leave the house to him. So, in his anger, in his grief, he goes after his brother physically. Arguments ensue that they actually get into a fight. Threats are made, and it escalates, and the police are called. Finally, the disabled brother ends up in the local psych ward under lock and key until he can get medicated and settled down. But the unfortunate outcome of this was that the out-of-town son is scared and he's mad and now he wants to evict his brother out of the house. Which is, of course, the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen, right?

Amy: You know, Mark, I wanna mention this really fast because I'm a huge proponent of having these conversations before something happens. Had that mom ever had this conversation with the son who lived with her explaining, if something happens to me, your brother will actually retain control of the house. And this is for this reason. Were conversations like that had or was he not able to understand them even if they did?

Mark: I couldn't agree more. And, of course, the planning ahead is only half the story. Sitting down and explaining to people what the plan is, is just as important as plan itself.

Steve: So, how do you...

Mark: And I've got an older married couple. It's a long-term second marriage for both of them. They were married for well over 30 years. They both have grown kids. One of them has four kids. The other one just has one child. The wife, with the one, the wife is just one child. She brought substantial savings to the marriage, but not much income. The husband brought a lot of income with him and a pension. He brought a lot of income into the marriage, but not much savings. They die within 30 days of each other, which is a little unusual. They have a trust and the trust leaves all of their assets equally five ways. Now, the one child, the child who's thought the mother's child, the only child, she thinks that's not fair. She thinks that she should get all of her mother's half, all the money that her mother owned. She doesn't trust her siblings or half siblings. Both sides hire lawyers. They lawyer up and off we go. But, of course, it plays out by arguing about used furniture and an old truck that doesn't run because frankly there's not much they can do to change the will itself. And so here this family devolved into discord. Can't get along and never will.

And I got a third story. I've got a file on my desk right now with an unmarried couple. They lived together for nearly 30 years in a farmhouse out in the far east side of town. The farmhouse was left to the man by his mother. He died and he left the house on the farm and the cows to his girlfriend. He left everything else to his brother. He named his brother as the executor, but the brother is angry. He's angry that he didn't get the family farm, you see, the family farm came from mom and it went to one son who then turned around and left it to his girlfriend. And so, the family farm is now outside of the family. So, the brother who's the executor of the estate he's angry, he squares off with the girlfriend, his brother's girlfriend, and now they can't even be in the same room together. And the truth is, there's nothing that... The surviving brother is the executive, there's nothing he can do that will is clear, the probate court's gonna enforce the will as written. There's not much he can do but he can certainly make life miserable for his brother's surviving girlfriend.

Now, guys, fortunately, these kinds of problems are not common. This is the exception, it's not the rule. But all three of these situations were fueled by misplaced grief. Grief can cause people to act out. They can blind people as to the needs of others. And to your point, Amy, all three of these situations could have been minimized by two things, transparency and understanding grief. If the deceased person had been transparent with his family about what he or she was doing and understand the plan before they died, there would have been much better context. And if the surviving family members had stopped long enough to understand that they were in a grieving process, given that if they had given themselves the time and space to grieve, and try not to overreact to other grief responses. And, of course, everyone is different. But processing grief can take time. It can take weeks to years. And people who make major decisions before they have processed their grief sometimes live to regret it.

Steve: Mark, we saw this in my family when my dad was in ill health and, eventually, passed away. And he did not like to talk about personal stuff. He did not want to make plans until the end. And I'm thankful he did. He sat down with myself, and I've got three sisters, and said, "Here are my wishes." And he made one of us, well, he had medical and financial powers of attorneys that clearly placed one of his children as his power of attorney in each of those areas. And when it came down to the tough decisions, you know, the one sister who wasn't really on board with everything dad wanted to do, had no choice because it was clear. All four of us knew exactly what his wishes were, and it was in writing as a power of attorney. That's pretty darn important to get it in writing through someone like yourself, correct?

Mark: Well, it certainly...absolutely. But probably more important part of that story, Steve, was the meeting that your dad held with the family, that he told them himself. And it was coming from the boss, if I can steal that old phrase. And when the boss sits down and says, "This is the arrangement I've made, this is why, it's hard to second guess the boss after the fact." Now, look, Steve, the truth is that if a family wants to fight, they're gonna fight then. They'll find something to fight about. And there's a lot of problems that good planning won't solve. But there are a lot of problems that it will solve too.

Amy: Mark, I love your point here because in all three of these stories, you know, I think you're right. It's, first of all, you don't know how you're gonna respond when the grief hits. You've got no idea. You could have the best intentions in the world and you could absolutely get along great with every family member at every holiday. And then, when that grief hits, right, you don't know how it's going to impact you. And so, I think the most loving thing that that person can do is to communicate once those plans are drawn up with everyone who's impacted so that there are no surprises. And I think that's my takeaway from all three of these kinds of worst-case scenarios here again. Thanks for your insights, Mark Reckman, our state planning expert from the law firm of Wood and 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 Sprovach. If you've got a financial issue or a question that you just can't figure out on your own, there's a red button you can click on. It's while you're listening to the show right there on the iHeart app. Record your question. It's coming straight to us. We'd love to talk about it here on the show and help you figure it out. Straight ahead, there are good times to buy certain things and bad times. And we're talking about used cars. Well, things have changed. We'll tell you what you need to know if you're looking to buy or sell one anytime soon.

Steve, this happened to me when I was in my 20s, was married. We sat down with our first financial advisor. And then when I say we sat down, we were technically both sitting across from the man, but to be clear, he didn't look at me once. He talked to my husband the entire time. And I really felt left out in the cold. And as you know, that's not a place where I like to be. And I wanna talk now specifically.

Steve: He did not know where the real power laid.

Amy: He had no idea what he was doing or the fact that he would never see our faces ever again. And I think this happens very often that one person kind of takes the reins. And studies and research shows us, it's often the man who kind of takes that lead role when it comes time to the money. And listen, women who are listening, like police, step up in husbands, and in partners, and in fathers, and sons include those women in the conversation because, well, also research shows us they will probably live longer than you and they're gonna be on their own at some point.

Steve: Yeah. And women have different financial planning needs than men in a lot of cases. I mean, I know a lot of people, I'm sure you do, too, where the woman kind of set her career aside once kids came around. My wife is one of those. She, you know, college educated, had a great career going. I ruined her life by meeting her.

Amy: She's stuck it out all these years.

Steve: And someday she'll wake up and say, "What the heck was I even thinking?" But anyway, I digress. No, but in all seriousness, she gave up a heck of a career. And I've seen this time and time again. And because of that, a lot of the wealth is in, even though it might be shared in a good long marriage, a lot of the wealth is in the husband's name. And yet, you're spot on. Women tend to outlive men. For a woman who has already reached the age of 65, there's an 80% chance she will exceed the age of 86, even though the average age for men and women is 79 and 73 at death, respectively. So, one way or the other, women outlive men, health issues come with those long lives, and these create some very important financial planning needs.

Amy: I've seen it in my own life. When my oldest was born, I was working full time, and I was on maternity leave, and I thought, "I cannot possibly go back to working 60, 70 hours a week like I had before she was born." And I ended up job-sharing and working part-time. And then a few years later, my mom passed away from breast cancer, and I was heartbroken, and I went to work for a charity organization where, by the way, they didn't have a ton of money. There was no 401(k), so I worked there for a couple of years, and there was no money building in a 401(k) at that time. So, I just think women's past might often look different than men's. And I've seen far too often, just in sitting down with my friends, you know, we'll ask questions. Of course, they ask, "Do you have a health savings account and things like that?" And often they'll say, "I don't know, I have to ask my husband." And I really encourage women in that situation, please figure things out. And if you both go and meet with a financial advisor, tell your husband, "Hey, I'm gonna take the reins in this conversation this time. I'm gonna answer the questions. If I get it wrong, you let me know." But that way at least you're used to being part of that conversation and helping to understand exactly what your goals are, exactly where the money is. So, that if something does happen to him, you are not left completely overwhelmed with absolutely no clue of what's going on.

Steve: Amy, yeah, I could not have said it better. I have seen the opposite. One time is one too many times, where the wife comes in after the husband passed away and the wife never came into any meetings with me. No, that was his department. He did all of that. And she came in, literally, I'm thinking one person, in particular, with a shoebox of statements saying, "I have no idea where to go forward." And you've gotta be engaged. I think the husband and wife need to participate in every planning session, whether it's of interest to you or not. Because someday it may be very important to you, even though that day may not be today.

Amy: The National Council on Aging has some research on this. They talked to 1,500 women over the age of 50 and said, "What are you most worried about when it comes to money?" Paying for healthcare during retirement was number one on that list. Also, though, high on that list, just concerns about financial planning. Maybe not really knowing where things are. And as we're talking about the fact that women live longer, but also great divorce is growing at an alarming rate. You may find yourself divorced from someone that you've been married to for 20, 30, 40 years and all of a sudden in control of this situation. So, there's lots of reasons why I would say, "Hey, women, if you just aren't really clear about where the money is, and how it's invested, it's time to kind of catch up."

Here's the Allworth advice. Remember, everyone's financial situation is unique, so your financial plan should be too regardless. Man, woman, whoever you are. Coming up next, why the time to buy and sell a car may have changed. 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 Sprovach. To buy or not to buy, to sell or not to sell. You know, it's been interesting because there's all these kind of patterns about the best time of the year to buy a house or sell a house or buy a car or sell one, but the pandemic has just upended all of that. Now, we're trying to figure out, okay, where we are now. We're starting to have ships and cars, and there's actual cars on car lots now. So, now, when is the best time to buy and sell?

Steve: So many cars, so little time. You know, I love cars. I am more than happy to talk about cars on this segment. It's really interesting. It's amazing how expensive cars have gotten in the last couple of years. I mean, the average price of a new car is up to $47,000. That's nuts. I mean, that's not... You think, "Okay, well, most..."

Amy: And you use cars. We have three teenagers that we have had to buy a car for in the past couple of years.

Steve: I can't imagine where you're going for, yeah.

Amy: And I say buy a car for, like, you know, they're helping. And things like that. But, you know, it used to be that you could buy a quality, safe, dependable, reliable car that doesn't have $300,000.

Steve: Yeah, a couple grand.

Amy: No. Now, I mean, now, you are looking at what I would have thought you pay for a new car, just for a used car. And I don't know, I think it's starting to come down a little bit, but it's not coming down quickly.

Steve: No. And the reason, this is really a supply chain issue because remember all those cars that everybody was talking about? Yeah, I saw a couple of thousand pickup trucks parked at Kentucky Speedway. You know, well, the problem was we had problems getting ships into this country during the pandemic. And you can't sell a car if stuff doesn't work on it. So, the dealers didn't have new cars. People that went in to buy a new car. "Well, okay, I don't have any new cars to sell you, but I've got these used cars you can walk off a lot with today." And guess what? When you have that much of a surge in demand and used cars, used car prices go up. So, you couldn't get a new car and use cars prices were up 40% and 50% over where they were at before the pandemic, 40% to 50%. There's still about 40% higher than normal, but they're coming down because new cars are in the showroom and that takes away the demand on used cars. And that brings up the next point, which is, all right, when's the best time if you've got a car that you wanna sell, you're selling a used car? Guess what? They're gonna keep dropping because supply chains are getting fixed. So, if you're gonna get rid of your used car, pretty much now is the time.

Amy: Yeah, and actually data shows that used car listing prices are about 3% higher right now or about 1,000 more than just after Labor Day. So, now is the time. And I think we always think of kind of like the traditional times, which like, okay, January when all the new cars for the next year come out on the lot, it's January. Well, actually now they're pushing that to February and saying, "Okay, if you're gonna buy a car or buy a used car or a new car, February is the time to do it." So, maybe around those Presidents' Day sales rather than the first of the year. So, things are shifting, and it's kind of hard to keep up with.

Steve: So, wait, you're supposed to sell your car now, but not buy one till February. How am I gonna get around?

Amy: It's a lot of Uber costs right there.

Steve: Scooter? I don't know.

Amy: Please, I will buy this year.

Steve: No, I used to do this... I thought that would be funny. And I'll have a helmet with flames on it. I used to do this with motorcycles when I was a kid. You sell a motorcycle in the... You buy it in the fall or winter and you sell it in the spring when everybody wants it, supply and demand. Economics 101.

Amy: Figuring these things out can help you save and actually make more. Thanks for listening tonight. We hope you'll tune in tomorrow. We're talking about one of the most underrated aspects of a financial plan. You've been listening to "Simply Money" presented by Allworth Financial here on 55KRC THE Talk Station.