John. Good to see you. We’re getting back to basics today. We are going to talk through the three financial phases of life. Our lives have three main financial phases: accumulation, preservation and distribution. And each stage has different goals, risks and opportunities. So what is the accumulation phase when we are in this stage? What are our biggest goals and our biggest risks?

Yeah, quite simply, the accumulation stage is your working years. And this is when you're stocking away all that retirement money that's going into your 401K or hopefully Roth 401K. And I like to use the mountain example for this video. And that is, if you are climbing up a mountain, the ascent up the mountain takes a lot of hard work and discipline and you're going without you know you're you're saving money that you could be spending. So it's a difficult thing to do and you have to stay disciplined. The next real goal then is to take those savings and grow them. So obviously, you're not depending on this money, you can be more aggressive in your investment selection. On top of that, if the market does drop, and you do lose money, you're still making contributions, which actually lessens the blow of those market losses that will help in the recovery. So the name of the game in accumulation is save and grow.

And next of course we have the preservation phase. When does that begin?

Yeah, so the preservation phase is what I like to call the phase that kicks off the 15 most important years of your financial life, also known as a retirement red-zone. So this is the last five years of employment and the first 10 years of your retirement. So the preservation phase, the first or the last five years of employment. This is where you should start to tune down the risk, maybe increase savings, hopefully you're making a little bit more money, you can do catch up contribution, but the big goal is you really want to reduce the risk in your portfolio. because most major market loss recoveries take about five years. And you don't want to be caught off guard in 2021. Or I'm sorry, 2022 or 2008. When you're going to retire in a year or two and you lose 30 or 40% You're not going to have time to get that money back. So it's time to dial down the risk.

And the last we have the distribution phase, essentially the opposite of the accumulation phase.

Yes. So you've reached the summit, the peak, and as my good friend and co host the shout out to Mr. Tom O'Connell, a very accomplished mountaineer by the way Erin, he will tell you that the ascent up the mountain as I stated, takes a lot of discipline, a lot of hard work, a lot of training. However, the most dangerous is the descent down the mountain. And the same is and that's why the distribution is the descent down the mountain. Because the main thing is your savings now becomes your livelihood, right you're now depending on this money to finance the rest of your retirement and living years. That is the number one fear of today's retirees– running out of money. So you have to understand your investing is totally different than in your accumulation years. You need to be much more conservative because you can not take on big market losses, especially if you're making distributions. That's called Sequence of Return Risk Erin, and that can become a compounding nightmare for retirees that really can take that peace of mind from their retirement. So, you know in distribution you want to be you want to be able to create a predictable and sustainable income stream that's going to last your lifetime, give you the peace of mind you deserve. We've talked about it all the time with our shield strategy. Give your money, give your life savings jobs, and one of those jobs should be to create an income stream that is sustainable and predictable.

Right and so then that protects us against that longevity risk. We just need to make sure we have enough money to last as long as we do.

Yeah and in some cases, it can also protect you against sequence of return risk.

Vitally important again, John, I think a lot of people are going to be hoping to speak with you before they get into that retirement red zone or maybe they are in it now. If they have any questions, how can they get a hold of you?

Yeah, well, it's always good to speak with a retirement professional, like myself, a couple of years before you retire. Get a good game plan marked out. If you want any more information on this, we have it all over our website, visit www.gosecurus.com. While you're on the website, you can visit the Contact Us Tab and from there you can schedule a 20 minute phone call where we'll answer any general questions or you can schedule a complimentary vision and clarity consultation. Or if you'd like doing things the old-fashioned way give us a call at the office at 858-935-6210, ask to speak with Emily Wale and she will get you on my calendar.

John thanks so much for your time today. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Erin.