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Hello, John, it's good to see you today we have such an important topic, cyber security, keeping yourself and your finances safe online. I was so surprised to learn that every two seconds someone becomes a victim of identity theft. And you have some really great action steps, including one that I hadn't ever heard of, but I'm gonna start today create a secret email address for your financial accounts. That is such a good idea.

Yeah, and you don't even by my own admission, right identity theft was a huge part of my background and the former rule of law enforcement. We saw it all the time, but I myself very own thoughts. I have a secret email address just for financial accounts, had credit and had tip to Devin Croft, who we had on our podcast a couple of weeks ago talking about identity theft. She came up with this idea and what you know, when we talk email addresses where we have our personal email address for friends and family and businesses we want to do business with and then we have that junk email, right? Oh, for the free download or or subscription. Yeah, you know, that's the email that we really don't take serious. But I've never thought to have a actual email just for your financial accounts as something I'm going to be bringing to my clients and I know my clients will be watching this video. So create a secret email address just for those specific financial accounts. Like in our case, TD Ameritrade. The big thing is that I want to key in on this is the second bullet point. Do not use any identifying information. Don't use your first name, last name initials. Use something like a hobby or a key word or slogan you may like but do not have any identifying information. And it's really just to keep those financial emails accounts separate from the rest.

Really good idea. All right. Second point of action here is set up instant text or email alerts for your credit and bank cards.

Yes, absolutely. Because you know, this is a proactive step, but it's really in a reactive situation. If, if you are a victim of identity theft, and they start using your credit card or debit card you want those notifications of a fraudulent possible fraudulent purchase or transaction in your bank account as soon as possible. So you can start limiting the damage and stopping everything and you know we have it with our credit cards where we may make a purchase online and our credit card company will deny the purchase initially until we confirm the purchase. So it does it's easy. All it takes is you allowing the push notification like on your phone and then just checking the push notification through a text message and saying yes, we made that purchase or no,

absolutely well worth it. Now on the other side of that coin, beware debit cards, they just don't have the same kind of protections that credit cards do.

Yeah, and this is a little bit of the more old school hacking that I saw a lot in law enforcement. I always encourage people and my wife and I, we spend with our credit cards because the credit cards have their own monitoring service. And if you have a fraudulent transaction, you can dispute that with the credit card and they should be handling that with your debit card. That's direct access to your bank account. We do not want that. And you know for a long time, a lot of scam artists would have card readers that they would install on gas stations or whatnot then they would sit back and videotape people from a distance and get their codes. And then the next thing you know your drink your bank account was being drained.

Right? All right last year, freeze your credit and protect your children. Let's take those one at a time. Freezing your credit rather easy and very important.

Yeah, so a lot of people like the you know, identity theft monitoring services. And we talked with Devin about this. They're nice, but again, they're a they're a proactive step for a reactive solution. Right? You only get a monitoring when something has already happened. Your email address has been on the dark web, your social security or phone number by freezing your credit that's free and they cannot do any major purchases on your behalf that will affect your credit score. Yes, you know, it's it's an extra step you're gonna have to unfreeze it if you're gonna make a car purchase and you know Bree and I'll be be making a couple car purchases this year. We're gonna have to go through those steps. However, we believe in shielding your financial well being and your finances. This is a step in and on for a lot of our clients that have significant wealth. This is a big step in protecting those assets.Right right. Now let's get to protect your children. Children are targeted because they have a clean credit report and because often their credit isn't frozen. So we need to kind of apply the same rules to them.

Yeah, and they are targeted because they're not making any big purchases. So their their credit score, could be you know, their credit could be being manipulated by thieves and criminals and you have no idea because you have no reason to. So children are a big target. I will caution you with this, Aaron, we're talking about this beforehand. You do have to go through the extra steps of sending your birth certificate into the credit monitoring service. So you know, be aware of that, but again, kids are a huge target. So you need to have their credit protected also.

This I think the big takeaway here John has to be there's a lot of proactive steps you can take. You might feel silly or it might be a headache. But in the long run, it's all well worth it.

Yeah, and yeah, that's, unfortunately in today's age. You have to take the extra steps, right. You know, way back in the days of Mayberry, we can leave our doors unlocked. Now you have to take the extra step of lock your door. Well guess what, folks? Now you have to take the extra step of locking that financial door. So it trust me to get things set up. It does take a little bit of time. But once it's set up, everything's easy and regardless, it's much easier than unwinding. Absolutely a victim of identity theft. Absolutely.

And I just want to remind everybody watching that your clients will be getting a really special value add this month that kind of outlines other cybersecurity points that they should take, right.

Yeah, it's gonna be a cybersecurity checklist and quiz. So you know, we are very committed to protecting our clients assets, whether it's nursing home state, the market taxes, and identity theft.

All right, and John, what's the best way to get a hold of you if somebody wants some help doing any of these things that we've mentioned?Yeah, you can go ahead and always visit our website www.go securus.com. We always are posting new information on there. Or you can click on the contact us tab and schedule a 15 minute phone call or 60 minute complimentary consultation. Or if you want to go the old school way give us a call at the office a 858-935-6210All right, John, thank you. Thank you Erin

John, good to see you. I have a really important question should you pay off your mortgage before you retire? A lot of us want to go into retirement debt free, but it's not just a financial but also an emotional decision. So before you pay off the debt, we want to walk through a few considerations and first your mortgage rate.

Yeah, and you know, before we even get going, there is no easy answer to should we pay it off, right? It's very, it's very goal based and individual just like anything is but you know, when we look at interest rates, interest rates, obviously make that decision a little bit easier. Now, if you're if you have a new mortgage, I don't think anyone's refiling right now, but now a couple years ago, if you had that 3% mortgage, well then you're you have a little bit of cushion to where maybe you don't want to pay it off. Maybe you have some other things you want to pay down first, but now as we look on the screen, a 6.42% 30 year fixed, that is where you're going to want to be getting a little bit more aggressive to pay down that debt.

Okay, next consideration, tax consequences, John, I know you're always talking taxes. So what are the consequences of either paying off your mortgage or using money from your retirement accounts to pay down your mortgage?

Well, let's talk about paying off your mortgage first, and this is especially important in things to consider it if one of the spouses has some health issues. That could be a priority to pay off the mortgage because let's say you have a $2,000 a month mortgage payment, you know, you're having to take out about, say hypothetically 25 $2,600 A month after you know before taxes. That withdrawal rate is pretty heavy, but you're also keying in on that $30,000 a year in extra taxes. So you could if you could eliminate that debt, you're also going to reduce the tax liability that comes with it. Now, how do we pay that what accounts do we pay it out of? Do we pay it out? Love the retirement account? Like you said, that's where you really want to be careful because if you're paying it out of the retirement, you say, you know I have a $300,000 mortgage left. I'm going to just pay this thing off before I go into retirement. And you take it all from your IRA. Well, you just triggered a $300,000 income that's going to be added to any other income you have and that could adversely affect Medicare. If you're near Medicare age. It's going to affect net investment tax and it can also affect your capital gains. So there's a lot of things to consider. You know, if you have non retirement money whether a brokerage account or a bank account, especially if you're one of those people that have over $250,000 in FDIC insurance, like we talked about in our last video, you may want to use that money because that's going to have a lesser tax

impact. Certainly doesn't happen in a vacuum kind of a domino effect. So as interest rates climb that will make paying down certain debt more expensive. So how do we prioritize paying down our debt?

Yeah, well, let's talk about the evil debt first, right those credit cards, no matter what the interest is, pay that down first and really look at you know, if you have let's say, you have credit card debt, you have an auto loan debt or or an RV or boat debt and you have a home equity line of credit, and you have a house, well just start to prioritize which one's got the highest interest rate? Because that's money, you're just basically burning. So pay down the high interest rate first. I myself have a home equity line of credit on it. We don't have a balance, but I've been paying attention to the interest rates and you know, the interest rates have gone because they're variable they've gone from 4% Just a couple of years ago, now up to 7%. So, you know, that's obviously something I want to be cognizant of. And, you know, once you have all your other debts paid down, then you know if you have your mortgage, that's when you can look to you know, perhaps accelerate payments into that but definitely get the highest rates out first, and especially on those variable loan variable rate loans,

right. Okay, so now let's say that I have paid down my high interest debt, then do I focus on my mortgage or should I be focusing on other savings instead?

No, I would definitely especially if your goal is to pay down your mortgage or you have some you know, life events, like we talked about health issues. That's when I would definitely look to pay down your mortgage. And again, you don't have to do it in one or two years. Let's say you have 20 years left, on your mortgage, maybe you're just going to start doing a schedule that would accelerate the payments in 10 years. You know, so anytime you're paying a as long as you can afford to pay that mortgage off out of your savings, then go ahead and do it because again, interest is just free money. Basically you're giving to that bank. Just make sure you don't have any prepayment penalties on your mortgage.

Oh my god. Really important note there. That's a great point, John. I always value again talking this thing through because there's no cookie cutter answer. So thanks for walking through these considerations with me. If somebody has questions about having that conversation with you, what's the best way to reach you? Yeah, well, you can always visit our website www.go securus.com. We have a list of resources on that website, but you can also schedule an appointment under the contact us tab or you can give us a call at the office 858-935-6210. All right, John, thank you. Thank you Erin

Hey John, it's really good to see you today we are talking about kind of some breaking news, what's happening with Silicon Valley Bank and the markets. We are recording this on a Monday afternoon. We want everybody to know that there are still a lot of moving parts but you made it a priority to be communicative with clients. So we wanted to get on top of this. So let's just get in the Fed is moving to stem the US banking crisis following the rapid collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. So let's start with what is most important for your clients, what do they need to know?

Well, the difference in the banks that our clients are, have their money with versus SVP is substantial, right? And the banks that our clients have their money in our systemically important banks, right, the too big to fail banks, banks with solid financial records and stable records and outlooks going forward. So, you know, in comparison the two I believe our clients are, are at very low risk of what happened to you know, the, the investors with SVP. So that's, that's important and systemically, the actual systematically important banks, you know, the big name brand banks are actually very well capitalized right now, too. So that's another type of positive ID that we haven't really heard too much about. Right.

So John, let's just break that down a little bit more because these non systemically important banks like Silicon Valley, their investments were heavily weighted in bonds and not was probably not a good investment decision. Yeah, I think what, 14 months ago, we moved our clients out of bonds, right.

It really their problem was twofold. Number one they had a lot of in in Silicon Valley valleys.

And since they had a lot of commercial deposits, but they didn't have any other way to make money. They weren't. They didn't have a lot of loans or mortgages or auto loans, like a lot of these banks do. So that was that was the first problem. The second problem is they went ahead and made a big bet on bonds in a zero interest rate environment with with the Fed spiking interest rates. So as one analyst I mean, very callously put it they were negligent mismatch of the investments, and they didn't hedge against that interest rate risk, and it blew up on them. So you know, that's a and we kind of look at again, a comparison SPP had 50% of its investments in bonds, whereas some of the systemically important banks 25% So that was what really caused it and then as soon as of course, having 50% of your holdings in long term bonds, they took a huge loss, which they announced last week. A lot of these corporate depositors, obviously, you just because your business is on the line, took the money out, then the rumors flew of a bank run off, and that's where we got to the SVP. Right. Okay. Well, thank you for that explanation. Again, just how this comes back to the clients or to the average investor. I don't know if this is average, but the FDIC only insurance deposits and banks up to $250,000. So if you have more than $250,000 in the bank, what should you be doing? be diverse, diverse if you're if you're a lover of banks, be diverse. Don't right, now's not the time to go for those small regional banks paying a little bit higher in interest rates. Whether it's an insurance company or or a bank, right? Brookstone vets these banks, they want to know that these banks are financially stable much the same way that if I ever do an insurance vehicle, we want the most financially superior companies. So have multiple banks, if you're going to carry over that 250,000 Because as I said earlier, the SVP beatdown that these companies are taking a lot of them were way beyond the $250,000 threshold. So that's a big lesson for people understand, right? So again, as we work to educate everybody who's watching this video, how is this different from the 2008 banking and financial crisis? Yeah, well, again, they there are some similar there's similarities. There was a lot of mismanagement. But there was less regulations being this is prior to the Dodd Frank and then you had the banks of the 2008 financial crisis and highly volatile derivatives. So now you know the banks see this systemically important banks are, as I said, they're, they're much more capitalized. And they're, they have a lot more regulations after the Dodd Frank and they have the ability to make money in a rising rate. interest rate environment with those loans and mortgage rates, that SVP and these other banks can now the word of warning is, are we done with this? Many analysts say no, this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the smaller regional banks, but those same analysts feel comfortable with the systemically important banks, as does Brookstone, Capital Management. So what I do believe this is going to do it's going to erode confidence in the banking system yet again.

And this is going to cause market volatility.

So, you know, for our clients, we're doing some more proactive things this week. As a matter of fact, after we record, I'll be on a call with my analyst to discuss some changes that we're looking at. Right? Okay. Well done talking this through with you was incredibly valuable. Of course, this it's very understandable if people feel anxious, though, after listening to these headlines, if they have any questions for you, what's the best way to reach you? Oh, you can just call at the office 858-935-6210 or visit our website www.go securus.com. And before we go, Erin, I've got to say thank you to all the people that production, the editing and the legal who review these videos because we're going to try to get this video out and turn it around in one day. So we want to get this information out. So thank you to all those people that worked hard for that. You do have the best team around town that's for sure. Thank you very much for your time today.

Thank you Erin.

American's have never felt this bad about the economy. The most recent "consumer sentiment index" cratered to its lowest level since data collection began in the 1970s. But as @John with @SecurusFinancial explains to @erinkennedy, this could actually be good news for your investments.

It may be tempting to think that low consumer sentiment would lead to poor stock market returns, but the historical record argues just the opposite. Take a look at the data (graph in video): during 8 sentiment troughs, if you look at each subsequent 12-month period, the S&P 500 return has averaged 24.9%!

If you have any questions about your investments or how to weather this market downturn with advanced investing options, please reach out for a complimentary consultation by calling (858) 935-6210 or by setting up an appointment at www.GoSecurus.com