Mexican Food, Deer Season, And Your 401(k)!

New year, new stakes—we’re celebrating our 17th year on the air and more than 800 shows with two big announcements: we’ve doubled our office space to expand service in the Ozarks, and we’re launching recurring “Ask Heather” segments with national Social Security expert Heather Schreiber. That means sharper guidance across Social Security timing, tax planning, Medicare, and IRMAA, all coordinated to protect your lifestyle, not just your account balance.

We get candid about why “winging it” fails. A simple farm-road story and two recent health shocks reveal what really derails retirements: unplanned risks, medical surprises, and sequence-of-returns damage. We break down the “quadruple whammy” that can drain portfolios—withdrawals during downturns, market losses, fees, and taxes—and show how to counter it with guaranteed lifetime income, risk-aware allocation, and tax-smart sequencing. You’ll hear how RISA risk profiling helps match your temperament to the right income strategy, and how modern tools like LTC strategies and impairment doublers on annuities can provide crucial cash flow when life takes a turn.

If you’re tired of salesy dinner seminars and want straight answers, you’ll feel at home here. We share how to build a durable income floor, when to consider Roth conversions, how to avoid forced selling, and why reviewing your plan annually is non-negotiable. Plus, a look at what’s ahead: client stories, practical checklists, and monthly content that turns complex rules into usable steps.

Subscribe, share with someone who needs a real plan, and send us your Social Security and tax questions for “Ask Heather.” Ready to stress test your retirement? Visit Ozarksretirement.com, click Contact Us for a free consultation, and leave a review to help more listeners find the show.

To learn more about Brad Pistole and the Ozark Retirement Group, please visit www.ozarksretirement.com 

Transcript

New Year And Show Milestones

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Welcome to State Money Radio with your host, Brad Pistol. Brad is a retirement income and tax planning certified professional, primarily serving clients in the Midwest, but he's sought after nationally for his expertise in helping people secure their retirement. Mr. Pistol is a licensed life insurance professional in approximately 20 different states, and he specializes in working with people who are near retirement and those who have already retired with wealth management, income planning, and asset protection strategies using life, health, long-term care, and annuity insurance products. And now, here to talk with you about securing your retirement, it's your host, Brad Pistol.

Doubling Office Space And Growth

Annuities, Trends, And Credentials

How We Assess Risk And RISA

No Seminars, Straight Talk On Events

Partnering With Social Security Expert Heather

Ask Heather Format And Listener Questions

The Corn Story: Planning Lessons

Retirement Requires Process And Review

Hidden Risks: Health Shocks And LTC

Another Health Crisis And System Realities

The Quadruple Whammy In Retirement

Services, Team, And How To Connect

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Well, happy new year, everyone. Welcome to 2026. Can you believe another year is here? How are you doing on those New Year's resolutions? Have you already broken them? Normally last one to two days for most people. Hey, maybe you'll go a whole week, or if you're really special, you might go an entire month. But either way, here we are. It's 2026. Entering into the 17th year of Safe Money Radio. If you've listened for very long, you know we just about a month ago had our special 800th episode. We actually did episode number 800 and 801 together. We had America's IRA expert Ed Slot on. We had lots of other world-renowned guests on, Tom Hegna, Heather Schreiber, Wade Fowl, Cheryl Moore, just lots of our friends and colleagues. And so we just want you to know if you're joining us right now for the first time ever, welcome to the show. Again, this is one of the longest-running financial planning shows in the nation, our 17th year. There are a lot of people who are on the radio because of us. We were doing radio back when it wasn't the thing, and now everyone has a radio show. Everyone has a podcast, and a lot of them locally because they've heard our radio show and our podcast. So we're grateful. We're grateful to be trendsetters. You know, there was once one uh a McDonald's, and now there are how many different food chains? But everyone's trying to copy McDonald's. So there are originals and there are knockoffs, and that's okay. Some of you own some of both. You own the originals and you own the knockoffs, and maybe they both work for you. But one of the things we love here at Safe Money Radio, we love at the Ozarks Retirement Group, is that we are the original. We started Safe Money Radio years ago in this area. We were the first and the only people to have ever been on as hosts of Safe Money Radio in the Springfield region. And many people have come and gone since then. You know, Safe Money Radio is a national show, and there were at one point about 80 different advisors on across the country, and it fell all the way down to, believe it or not, one person in the nation still doing Safe Money Radio, and now it's built itself back up, and there are other people doing it across the country. But I've been the one and only to be on all this time, more than 800 episodes, and so we're grateful. So if you've never joined us, buckle your seatbelt. We love to be creative and innovative. We have incredible guests on the show. We're going to be talking about that today. And as we start off 2026, we have a huge announcement for all of our listeners. Now we've been in the same office location since 2009. We're about one block east of Lambert's in Ozark, Missouri, in the Ozarks, which is why we are the Ozarks Retirement Group. But we just signed a new deal back in December of 2025, and we have doubled our office space. You heard me correctly. We've doubled our office space. We started off in one tiny office back in 2009, and that expanded into two, and then that went to three, and then three went to six, and now we are going to have 12 different office lease locations all in all in the same space, but we've doubled the size of our offices. We've added staff, so new staff members in 2026. And we're thankful to all of you listening right now for the growth, the expansion to be the one and the only in this area who does what we do. Well, there are a lot of people who've jumped on board and want to be your safe experts, your safe money, your protected lifetime income. But most of these people were poo-pooing all this idea 17 years ago when it all started. If you mention the word annuity or permanent life insurance or guaranteed lifetime income, they would say, oh, you don't want any of that. Annuity is a bad word. And now scroll forward 17 years after Brad Pistol's been on the radio five times a week for 17 years, and now everyone loves annuities. And so you probably can't turn around wherever it is you live right now. You might be listening in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, California, New York, wherever you are. We have clients all over the country. And you probably get a dinner seminar invitation every day of the week. You get the opportunity to go to an educational event on a college campus, or you watch a TV show that's about protecting your assets. And guess what? If you've ever been to any of them, it's all going to be centered on the same thing. They're going to tell you you need to buy an annuity. All of them do the same thing. They're assets under management, but they also are dual licensed. And they're first going to want to make sure you've got guaranteed lifetime income because what used to be a bad word is now the hottest slice of bread known under the sun. Everybody wants to sell you an annuity. So we're grateful to be the trendsetters. We're thankful we've been talking about this longer than anyone else. And friends, again, if it's the first time you've ever listened to the show, just go to ozarksretirement.com, www.ozarksretirement.com, or just Google Brad Pistol. You'll find pages and pages of information. I've been in the Wall Street Journal. I've been in USA Today. I've written articles for the Million Dollar Roundtable publications. I've been all over the place speaking and writing articles, writing books, and you will see the information that I've been talking about for almost two decades now has found its way all across the country. Literally between four and five hundred billion dollars a year go into safe money products across this country because people just like you who are listening right now do not want to put their hard-earned money at risk. They don't. Now, friends, we do the risk management side. My son is an investment advisor representative, and he'll do stocks bonds mutual funds for you. If you want to play the markets and swing for the fences and go for the higher return, fantastic. But we won't suggest you do that until you've taken our risk profile, this very special process that we have with Dr. Alex Margia and Dr. Wade Powell, retirement income specialist, we'll have you take the RISA, the retirement income style awareness that will show you exactly what your risk level should be and why. And after doing this, taking this online survey takes about 15 minutes and we pay for it for you. It will generate a report for you that will be sent to you, and you can look at it and go, oh, now I know why I feel the way I feel when the market goes up and down. And now I know why I feel what the way I feel about risk in retirement and whether or not my income is going to stay the same and what happens if the markets stay down for very long. And we are both, my son and I, retirement income certified professionals through the American College. And we will show you what your specific risk profile is, what your risk corridor is, and then appropriately suggest that you go into certain products that will best meet your needs. So if you're listening right now, you're joining us for the beginning of 2026, the very first episode of the year. We're going to be talking about some exciting things. First thing is doubling our office space. We're going to do some powerful things inside our office location. This is so neat. We're right off I-65, one block east of Lambert's. And guess what? Right across the street from the new multidimensional retirement planning center, community center that's going to be built. If you've missed that in the news locally to Springfield, you can see this new retirement center community, all these homes, it's incredible. That's going to be right across the street from us. We've been here for 17 years. We're not going anywhere. We're here to serve the pre-retirees and the retirees of the Ozarks. You can call us anytime, 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. But here's what's really easy: just go to our website, Ozarksretirement.com. You'll see access to a lot of our videos. You can subscribe to my podcast on that page. You can request a free consultation anytime. We do not charge fees to meet with you. Just click on the contact us button, Ozarksretirement.com. We'll get together free of charge. I will give you a copy of my best-selling book, Bulletproof, The Safe and Secure Retirement Income Plan. So call us anytime or go to our website and we're going to take a quick break and then I'm going to come back with another major announcement for 2026. Ozarksretirement.com, click the contact us button and we'll get together. Friends, if you're just now joining us on the first show of 2026, I announced earlier that we are doubling our office spaces. This started January the 1st. Now we're going to be under construction for a little while, doing some special things to all this office location. We're going to be creating some very unique rooms inside this. We're going to be able to have group gatherings here. And those of you that have listened for very long, you know this. I'm not a public event person from the standpoint of like all the other people in this industry seem to be. I don't flood you with dinner seminar invitations. I don't do them. None of them. I'm not going to flood you with, hey, let's meet at a college campus and under some ghost name, I'm going to act like this is a nonprofit where I educate you for three weeks only to then ask where all your money is so I can then turn you into a client of mine and do financial services for you. Friends, if you're going to any type of nonprofit educational event on a college campus, it's a financial advisor and he wants your money. That's what it is. Just know it ahead of time. If you're going to a dinner seminar, it's a financial advisor and he's going to ask where your money is. If you're going to a local Social Security event, it's a financial advisor, and after they do your free Social Security customized report, they're going to ask where your money is and they're going to tell you why they need to be your advisor because they know Social Security better than anyone else on the planet and they're the best financial advisor there is. Just know what you're getting into. On the second episode this year, I'm going to talk about a real life heartbreaking story that just happened to clients of ours who've been clients of ours since 2012 because they responded to one of these events, this request, because it was an attorney who was going to do trust work for them and they thought they needed a trust. And so they went, and guess what their sales pitch was? Well, it involved their finances also. Where are all your financial accounts? And we need to know because it's going to go into the trust and blah, blah, blah. And long story short, they got asked to do something that is should absolutely be illegal, should absolutely be against the law. The person should be in prison for it. I'll tell you about it in an upcoming episode, but it's because they responded to one of these events. I always say this be super careful before you ever respond to a dinner seminar event. How much does that free dinner cost you? Well, I can tell you this. Our clients who just went to that free dinner to go get the trust, it costs them more than$70,000 a year in guaranteed lifetime income. More than$70,000 a year. I'll explain it in an upcoming episode. But here's the second big announcement of the year. So excited to announce that we have partnered with my good friend, I call her sis. She's been on the show for many, many years, Heather Schreiber. I know a lot of you that listen, you know, I had like 25 different guests on the show last year. A lot of you will email me, you'll call in and say, oh, we love it when Heather's on the show. She is a national social security expert. She's a retirement income certified professional. She's currently in the tax planning certified professional course through the American College that I was the first graduate of in the U.S. So she's going to add those credentials to her name. But we've had her on many times in the past, but we have partnered with her. You'll find her on our website, Ozarksretirement.com. She's held on Retainer by Us. We're the only financial group that she works with in this regard. She's going to be on the show in 2026 on a recurring basis at least six times, between six and ten times this year. We're going to be doing a very specific Ask Heather episode. That way you guys who have so many different Social Security questions can call in anytime and ask us questions that we can ask for Heather. So let me tell you a little bit about more about Heather. For more than three decades, Heather Schreiber has been helping financial professionals transform complex retirement income strategies into meaningful, client-ready conversations that inspire confidence and results. She is the founder and the president of HLS Retirement Consulting. Heather partners with forward-thinking advisors nationwide to design retirement income, tax, and Social Security strategies that grow and protect the clients they serve. She's a nationally recognized educator and speaker. She works with the American College of Financial Services through their knowledge hub platform, where she shares actionable guidance that bridges technical precision with real-world application. She is the author and editor-in-chief of Heather Schreiber's Social Security Advisor, a nationally distributed publication that helps advisors turn complex rules into strategic credibility-enhancing insights. Her expertise spans Social Security and Medicare planning, tax-efficient retirement income strategies, IRA distribution planning, legacy planning, and estate coordination with advanced tax mitigation techniques. Now, in 2022, Heather was honored with the NAFA Pillar Award for outstanding contributions in annuity education. Here's another thing that's really special about Heather. Again, she's like a sister to me. I've known her for 20 years. Heather went through something that a lot of us go through in what I now call the sandwich generation. And that's where you're living with your children and your own parents. You're sandwiched in the middle. You're taking care of and helping raise two different generations. She calls home Woodstock, Georgia, and that's where she and her husband, Eric, enjoy a family that includes two sons, two daughters, and four dogs. But she also recently joined the ranks of America's 63 million family caregivers. Heather cares for her aging mother, who is living with Alzheimer's and dementia. And friends, I've walked through her with her, through all of this, so many texts, so many phone calls about what it's like to have a sick parent. I lost my father three years ago. It was ongoing health issues before it. He worked for us here in the business. He was an advisor of 52 years. It is never fun to watch a parent start to fail in their health and to go through issues that you can't solve or resolve. And I watched that happen with my father, and she's watching it happen with her mother, and she knows what it's like to raise her own children, some in college, some still at home, take care of her husband, raise their pets, and also have her aging mother with Alzheimer's and dementia in the home with her. I know they're just now moving her into a care facility. But Heather can now really relate to so many people as a national speaker, a national advisor. She is a tax expert. She is a social security expert. She has real-world experience with helping aging parents. And so, friends, we are so honored to have someone of her expertise on the show. She'll be on in early January, and then we will continue every other month having her back on for Ask Heather segments, where you'll be able to ask us anything ahead of time. So I'll say this right now. If you're listening, you can go to Google, you can go to YouTube, type in Brad Pistol and Heather Schreiber. That's S C-H-R-E-I-B-E-R, and you'll see our episodes together. Some of our uh shows have been viewed 25,000, 30,000 times, especially the what's the magic number for when to trigger your social security? That's one of our most watched videos. But we're going to be dealing with a lot of social security questions, IRA questions, tax planning questions. So you can email me anytime, Brad at Ozarksretirement.com, or you can call in and say, hey, Brad, I would love to have Heather answer this question about Social Security planning or IRA planning or tax planning. And we'll ask Heather on the show. You can tell us whether or not you want your name mentioned, but we'll be doing that in upcoming episodes. So first segment, hey, we've doubled the office size here. More room to serve you. We've added staff to our office location. We're going to have Heather Schreiber on throughout the year. And stay with us because I have some more to share with you here in just a minute. Call us anytime, 866-780-SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. Or just simply go to Ozarksretirement.com. When you go to Ozarksretirement.com, just click on the contact us button and then you can schedule your own financial consultation right there. It'll send us an email. We'll get back in touch with you, and we'll get together free of charge. And when we do, I'll give you a copy of my best-selling signed autograph book, Bulletproof, The Safe and Secure Retirement Income Plan, with the forward by America's IRA expert, my good friend Ed Slott. 866-780-7233. There's always someone standing by to take your call. Friends, as we get started here at the very first episode of 2026, I'm reminded of a quick story from mid-December of 2025, just a few weeks ago. Now, I took off six days. I can't remember when I ever took off six days in the past. As a matter of fact, I spent six nights in a row at my farm over in Kansas, and I could not remember a time in my life when I've ever been gone from work ever for six six nights in a row. And it was amazing to be gone. Now, truth be told, I wrote several radio shows while I was there, and this radio show was inspired while I was there. So I've got to tell you the story. It's just the way my brain works. When you're on the radio five times a week and you have podcasts that are going on all the time, two online posts a week, your mind is always in what you do in radio and teaching and educating. And so here's the thing I was stopped at a local store. We have them all over Springfield. They're all over the Midwest, a tractor supply store. And I was there getting corn for the deer on my farm. I love feeding the deer and watching the deer. I took a lot of videos while I was there. Just I have the most beautiful place on planet earth, high above a lake, the highest point in the county, and it's quiet and there's no one around for my. And I love being there. But when I was at Tractor Supply, I had just purchased 20 bags of corn and had loaded my truck to the top. And as I was about to shut the tailgate, this truck pulled in next to me and out jumped out five hunters. They were just pulled into town from just north of Houston, Texas, and they had driven all the way to Eureka, Kansas, and were stopped there to buy corn. And so one of them being funny, and they're all in a great mood. Hey, they're about to start a deer hunt and be on vacation. He said, Hey, I'm sure glad you bought all that for us. Just follow us here in a minute and you can go drop it off at our place. And I jokingly back to them said, Oh, I hope you're not here to buy corn. And he said, You didn't buy all of it, did you? And I said, Oh, well, probably not, but I did buy everything that was in there on the pallet. And he goes, Are you kidding me? Are you serious? Is it apple corn? I said, Only apple corn, that's the best. He's like, Oh man. He's like, uh, well, we got to work out something. And I, as a good financial advisor, said, Well, I'd be more than happy to sell it to you for double the price. And they started laughing and said, Of course you would. And I said, Hey, you guys are from Texas. That's the land of big business. You know how things work. Anyone's willing to make a deal. No, I actually did leave a little bit of corn in there, but it was only three bags. I literally got everything off the pallet except three bags. And they said, Is there seriously not any left in there? And I go, Well, there are three bags. Maybe they've got more in the back. And then we started talking and sharing, and I noticed something because I get paid a lot of money to pay attention to details. That's the way life works. I noticed that five guys got out of a Ford F-150, and that F-150 will be performing a miracle if it makes it through the week and all the way back to Houston, Texas, because it looked like it was on its last leg. But I noticed, more particularly than the truck, the back end. The back end of the truck had no tarp on it. It had no bungee cords on it. It had no cover on it whatsoever. And all piled into the back of this truck were camo bags, gun cases. It looked like a bow case or two, even though it was rifle season in Kansas. And it was jam-packed of everything under the sun, but not stacked in neatly. It was all like they just all threw it out of their trucks all into one truck and took off to Kansas. And they obviously had not done any prior planning regarding corn, which is legal to feed in Kansas. They thought, well, let's just travel there and then we'll get there and get it. And so I was like, well, hey, when do you guys start hunting? And they said, oh, here in a couple of hours. And so they just rolled into town, had no plan to get their corn, except that they thought they'd pull in and just get it in the middle of rifle season in Kansas, didn't think about supply and demand there. And then we said our goodbyes. I said good luck. They said good luck. And I drove on down and went to another store to grab some things. And as I pulled out of the Dollar General, I noticed these guys had left that store and pulled in to a Mexican restaurant and they were stopped to get out to eat. And there's that pile of all their stuff coming out over both sides of the back of their truck. Now, friends, here's the moral of the story. If you're a deer hunter, you'll understand this. If you're not, you won't. But Mexican food, you ever get that in your clothes and realize how long it takes to get that out of your clothes? Forever. Two, three days, two, three weeks, maybe. They pulled into town, had no plan for their corn, had no thinking about, oh, we're about to get Mexican food in the scent all over us, and then we're going to go hop in a tree stand or a deer stand and expect to kill a deer or harvest an animal that estimated has 400 times the sense of smell as a human being. 400. Can you smell Mexican food on someone when they come out of a restaurant? There's no doubt. Like, oh my goodness, you've had onions and you've had Mexican food. So here's my thought process as we get started today. Is your retirement plan like these guys plan to go on their hunting trip? There's no cover, there's no bungee cords, there's no protection. They just threw all their stuff in and were like, hey, let's go deer hunting. Let's drive 10, 12, 15. I don't even know how far of a drive is it from Houston, Texas to Eureka, Kansas. It's a long way through all kinds of weather. They'll be lucky if they got there with all their things that some of their guns didn't jump out of the truck because it was just all stacked in a pile, like up to Mount Everest. No protection whatsoever. And then just hop out, thought they were going to buy corn. Well, they maybe bought three bags, but that's it. And they're like, okay, let's go hunting. Is that the way it is for your retirement plan? I can't tell you how many times in my career people have called me one week before they're about to pull the trigger on their retirement and say, hey, Brad, I've listened to you for the last 10 years and I put my notice in at work and I need to come talk to you. Great. When's your retirement start? Oh, it starts in 10 days. Friends, it requires a whole lot more work than that. I've been doing this for two decades. I have five different financial designations. Won't go into all that here. Just go to the website and look it up. Hours upon hours, years upon years of training. I've been training with the Ed Slot group and IRA training for 15 years now. This is year number 16. You do it every single day and you still have questions every day that you can't answer. You've got to rely on other experts. And so that's why we have people like Ed Slott and Heather Schreiber and Tom Hegna on the show. But friends, I want to say this to you as you begin 2026. I hope your retirement plan is not just let's throw it all in the back of the truck and drive for a few hours and one week later be like, okay, hey, we're retired. Let's just wing it. Let's just go with what we've got. Let's hop out and go. That's not the way it works. It's very complex, requires a lot of training and a lot of planning. And then you have to revisit the plan over and over and over again. As retirement income certified professionals, that's exactly what we do here at the Ozarks Retirement Group. Call us anytime. 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. Or just go to the website, Ozarksretirement.com. You can see all of our videos. You can podcast, click on and subscribe to the podcast. You can see articles I've written. You can see different events that I've been a part of and spoken all across the country. But you can click on the contact us button in the upper right hand corner. We'll reach out to you and give you a free consultation. Ozarksretirement.com or 866-780-7233. There's always someone standing by to take your call. Friends, as we keep sharing together today on the first episode of 2026, I just want to say again, happy new year. I hope you are sticking to your new year's resolutions. I hope it becomes a part of your plan and your schedule and your routine every day, that it's not something that just lasts for a few moments. But I hope it's something that lasts every day and becomes a lifestyle. Remember, when you pull the trigger on retirement, you will probably be retired for 25 to 30 years. It will be one third of your life. This isn't something you can just wing or just figure out as you go. And we are so guilty of working so hard and going and going and going that we never plan for the next phase. But I'm telling you, as a retirement income certified professional, as a tax planning certified professional, this is something that requires a lot of time and a lot of expertise, a lot of math and a lot of science. And so what I want to talk about on this segment, because we just talked about a group of guys from Texas that drove all the way to Kansas and didn't look like they had a very good plan in place. It looked like they just threw everything into the back of the truck and said, hey, let's go hunting, and they were just going to get there and figure it out. And I can tell you, they probably won't have a lot of success. If they just get there and figure it out the way it looks like they're going to, they'll probably go home frustrated. The same thing's going to happen with retirement planning. If you're like, well, hey, my other friends are retiring and they seem to be enjoying it, so I think I'll retire. Well, if you don't have a good plan in place, maybe they're working with someone like me who knows what they're doing, and maybe that's why it looks like they're having a lot of fun. If not, I can tell you, retirement planning and retired life can be very challenging. And a lot of times, it can be the unexpected that can throw you off course. So throughout 2026, we're going to be having different clients on the show. That's going to be something that we've not done in the past. I've always wanted to do, and so we're going to introduce a lot of our clients. They are the heroes of the stories, the people that have worked their whole lives, who are living their dreams. We're going to have them share with you. And with permission today, I'm going to share one story that came to us in December of this last year. One of our clients came in to talk to me. He's 73 years old. And he said, Hey, um, I don't think you know what happened to me back in the summer. And I go, No, I don't guess I do. What happened? He said, Well, some friends of ours, actually really close family members, wanted me to work on their RV. You know, I'm a jack of all trades, I can do a little bit of everything. And so they asked me to come do some wiring in their RV. And so when I got there, I did something that I don't normally like to do, but I didn't really have a choice. I found out that it was well, the wiring was up above my head, and I didn't bring my ladder, and so I used their ladder, and I already knew what was coming next. I actually cringed. Having fallen off of a ladder myself before, and now I'm I'm at I'm 54, friends, and let me tell you what I don't do. I don't climb ladders anymore. There's just some things you just don't do anymore. He climbed a ladder, and here's what happened. His words, I was only on the fourth step, and I only fell two steps, but I fell sideways and I broke. I've got the notes right here. Let me make sure I say it correctly. I broke six ribs. They had to install three plates. I was in the hospital for 11 days. I incurred more than$170,000 in medical expenses. I only fell two feet, but broke six ribs, three plates, and$170,000 later. And here's what he said. Now I have ongoing health issues. The ongoing health issues didn't come from the fall or from the broken ribs. It happened, and I'm going to spare you the details because it is so bad. But the ongoing health issues happened from some other thing they did while he was in there in the hospital. And what they did has now created an issue that's embarrassing, it's painful, it's a struggle, and it will last the rest of his life. But that happened because of an accident that happened. Now, here's the thing. Again, 73 years old, and you would think, well, he's probably retired, actually 74 years old. And you would think, um, he's probably retired. Well, no, in this case, he's healthy and like a lot of people, he's semi-retired. He still works. So now you have a loss of income. Now you have a loss of ability because now physically you're not able to do what you were once able to do. Now you have medical bills. Now you have time off work. Now you have loss of jobs because of the things you were doing that you're now backed up on. Friends, a lot of times in retirement, it's the unexpected or what I call the non-financial aspects of retirement planning that can throw you a curveball and send you for a loop. So are you prepared for the future? Have you wrapped your financial plans in protection? What happens if you end up with terminal illness or in a nursing home? Or if you have the inability to do two of six ADLs, activities of daily living like walking and bathing and feeding and toileting, mental continence. What happens if that happens? Do you have a plan in place? Do you have long-term care protection? Do you have an annuity with an income doubler or an impairment doubler? Yes, those things exist. Some of them exist very inexpensively. One tenth of 1%. Or in other words,$100 per every$100,000 of money that you put into products can protect you with income doublers. Do you even know anything about this? Friends, that's why I've helped people all across the country. I'm licensed in more than 20 states. We are retirement income certified professionals, and we wrap your retirement plans in protection. If you would like to know how this works, call us anytime, 866-780 SAFE, or just go to our website, www.ozarksretirement.com, click on the contact us button, and we'll get back in touch with you and do a free financial consultation. Again, our number is 866-780-7233, and there's always someone standing by to take your call. Friends, as we continue the show today, the first show of the year, don't want it to be a negative thing, but I do want it to be a very realistic thing. Back in December, I shared with you the story of a 74-year-old client of ours who went to do some work in a family member's RV and was working up above their head on their ladder, and they fell two steps and they broke six ribs and it incurred$170,000 in medical expenses. They were in the hospital for 11 days and they were still working. So this was loss of income. This was hurt to the pride. And now, because of something, another procedure that happened while they were in the hospital fixing the ribs, they have ongoing health issues that are going to last the rest of their life. A very bad malpractice situation. But here's the thing this isn't the only story I heard about in December. Another one happened to a family member of mine, my uncle that I've talked about on the show before, love my uncle. I only have two uncles left on this planet. One of them is struggling, hanging on to survive. And this uncle, who wasn't, now is because on Thanksgiving Day of 2025, no one had heard from my uncle. Where's Uncle Dennis? What's going on? So everyone started calling. He didn't answer the phone. And finally, his son-in-law, David, was able to answer the phone and find out that when Dennis sat down to turn on the bath water to get in the bath to get ready for Thanksgiving Day, he got dizzy and fell on the floor. And two and a half hours later, he realized he was still in the floor. And his number one goal was to be able to crawl over to wherever he thinks he remembered his phone was so that he could call for help. And they wanted to call for life assist, life alert to get over to help him. And long story short, he ended up in the hospital in Conway, Arkansas. Now, that stay lasted all the way until December the 9th. He was in hospital from Thanksgiving Day to December the 9th. Certainly wasn't his plan when he woke up on Thanksgiving Day. Can you imagine how much of a medical bill was incurred during that amount of time? During that time, they also found blood clots in his legs. They had to go through and diffuse the blood clots, several different procedures. Now, all the way back in 2012, he had a filter put in to protect blood clots from going to his heart, and they found out that, and there was a very specific medical reason for it, but they needed to remove that filter. It was causing some of the problems in the blood clots. So, long story short, they could not move him from Conway, Arkansas to Little Rock, Arkansas to Baptist Hospital because all of the beds were full. Thanksgiving 2025, six or seven floors at Arkansas Baptist in Little Rock, Arkansas, completely full. Full because of all kinds of health issues. Many of the health issues are there because of retirees. And had most of them planned for those medical issues? Of course not. It's the unknown, unplanned things in life that throw us a curveball. So you might have a plan in place. You might have long-term care in place. You might have an annuity with specific types of income riders, impairment doublers, or maybe you're listening to this and you've never heard of any of those, and you already know I don't want long-term care policy. I don't want to have to pay for something I might not ever use, and then I'll just flush that money down the toilet. And that's where about 60 to 70% of people live in today's world. They don't want those unnecessary expenses of things they know they might not ever use, so they just don't do it. And not having a plan is not a good plan. You're self-insuring, meaning if that does ever happen to you and you end up in the hospital like the last two people I mentioned on the show, and you incur a$170,000 bill or a$300 or$400,000 bill, whatever Medicare doesn't cover, you're left with 20% of that, and any deductibles and any medications. And friends, it can absolutely bankrupt you in retirement planning. So as part of our overall process when we meet with clients, we first want to find out where are your assets? Are you protected or not protected? Is your ratio correct? It's okay to have some in the markets, but you need some guaranteed lifetime income. Social Security is guaranteed lifetime income as long as it's solvable as long as it's solvent, right? Pensions are, for the most part, guaranteed lifetime income as long as the company stays solvent. And annuities are guaranteed lifetime income as long as it's strong annuity carriers. So we have to make sure we've got a good combination of all these things. Risk management's great. Play in the markets are great for high returns, but it's not guaranteed. And if you go through too many major downturns in the market, you can lose that income or it will have to be adjusted and turned downward because of the market. I talk about this a lot in my podcasts, I talk about it in my books, I talk about it when I speak across the country. There are four things that will wipe you out in retirement. I call it the quadruple whammy. If you've ever watched the show with the little whammies on there, you know when you get the fourth whammy, it's game over. Lights out. There is no more game. You're done. You're no longer a contestant on the show. So here are the here are the four whammies. When you start taking distributions, which 99% of all people, once they retire, start taking distributions from what they've saved their whole life, their retirement accounts. You take distributions while the market's going through a downturn. So a withdrawal is a loss to the account, a market loss is a loss to the account, and that could be 5, 10, 20, 30, 50% like it was in 01 and 08 or during COVID. So you have a distribution, you have a loss from the market, you have an advisor fee, the depending is one to one and a half or 2% on the account. And then you pay taxes on those distributions. Unless it is a Roth account, you're going to pay taxes. You'll pay taxes on 100% of the distribution if it's an IRA or a 401k or a tax-deferred account. If it's a cash account, what we call a non-qualified account, you're going to pay taxes on all the gains. The only way you won't have taxes on the distribution is if it is a Roth account. So distributions plus losses plus fees plus taxes will wipe you out in retirement. What is your plan? Have you put together the right plan that will protect you from the four potential whammies that will wipe you out? Have you put together a plan that will protect you from what we just talked about in the last two episodes? The unknowns of life, the falling off of a ladder, the getting dizzy and falling in the bathroom, having a stroke, a heart attack, a car accident, a texting driving teen, T-bones you in the side of your vehicle, slipping and falling on the ice. All the things that could possibly happen that you don't plan on. What is your plan? Do you have a foolproof or what I call a bulletproof plan for your retirement? This is exactly what we help our clients do. Our number's 866 780 Safe. Go to ozarksretirement.com and click on the contact us button. When you do, and when we meet free of charge, I'll give you a signed copy of my best-selling book, Bulletproof, The Safe and Secure Retirement Income Plan. Just go to Ozarksretirement.com and click on contact us. Friends, we thank you so much for joining us on the show today, our first show of 2026. It's our 17th year on the air. We've had more than 800 episodes of Safe Money Radio air all across the Ozarks, going back all the way to 2010. This is the one-stop shop. We've doubled our office space in 2026. We've added staff. We have a team that works for us in Denver, Colorado. Heather Schreiber is now working with us exclusively to do work with all of our Social Security planning, tax planning, IRA planning. We have an incredible team of advisors here on the staff, whether it's Medicare, Social Security, if you're turning age 65, this is the place you need to call. Kinsley will help you get all set up and situated for your Medicare plan, your health plan. If you have IRMA issues, income related monthly adjustment amount questions, if you've received an IRMA letter, I'm an income-related monthly adjustment amount certified planner. Have the designation. I can talk to you about it. Friends, we are here to help you. We're so thankful to have served in the Ozarks for these many years, almost two decades now, and we're thankful to be the longest-running financial planning show in the area by a country mile. We set the standard, we get copied all the time, it makes me laugh. Friends, as I record this right now, there's an event taking place in Springfield. They're having a guest speaker. I mentioned his name on the show all the time. He wrote the forward to my book. They're having it at a location where I had the guest speaker come in. I had it at this location, and they're calling the event the exact same thing I called the event. What do you know about that? Friends, it's we're honored when people try to reduplicate and repeat what we've done. They always do it two, three, four years later. But whether it's a radio show or creating a podcast or advertising in the same locations we do, or having the same people come in and speak, my goodness. I I want to say, can you not create your own thing? But it is very flattering when people realize what we're doing for people all across the country and they want a piece of the pie. So it's an honor. We are honored to serve you. We're thankful to serve you. Send your questions in to us for the new Ask Heather episodes that are going to be coming. 2026 is going to be phenomenal. We're going to have a lot of incredible things to share with you. New videos release every Monday. So make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Just go to YouTube, type in Brad Pistol, Ozark's Retirement, and subscribe to the podcast so that you don't miss any of our videos. When we have guests on the show, you'll be able to watch them on YouTube. And that way, no matter what, whether it's Social Security Planning, income planning, tax planning, questions that you have about whatever it is that pertains to retirement planning, long-term care insurance, life insurance, taxes, estate planning, estate taxes, whatever it is, it will be covered on our website. Send us an email anytime. We'll cover any topic you would like to hear us talk more about. And we look forward to bringing an incredible show to you every single week, just like we have for the last 16 plus years. 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. Or just go to Ozarksretirement.com. Click on the contact us button in the upper right hand corner, and you can always ask for a free financial consultation. I have a library here that's quite unbelievable. Tom Hegness books, Ed Slott's books, Wade Fowl's books, my books. Contact us anytime. I'll share this information with you locally. You can come in and meet with us. I'll give you a copy free. We're here to serve you and continue to be the best advisors in the Ozarks. So grateful to have you be a part of the show. Subscribe, like, and hey, here's one last big announcement. We're now on Facebook. I hate Facebook. Personally, I'm not on there as an individual, but Ozarksretirement.com, Ozarks Retirement is now a Facebook page. Our marketing director is putting all that together so you can find us there too. We realize a lot of you do live there. You spend a lot of time there. And so we're going to be releasing our weekly videos and information there every single week. So whether it's Facebook or whether it is YouTube, Spotify, wherever you find your podcast, radio, you can find us. Brad Pistol, SafeMoney Radio, Ozarksretirement.com. Hit the contact us button or call us anytime and ask for a free financial consultation. 866-780 SAFE. That's 866-780-7233. Well, I'm about out of time, and I would like to thank you for listening to Safe Money Radio. If you're serious about your financial future, give me a call, and together, we'll get your retirement savings on the fast track to accumulation while reducing exposure to market losses. Thanks for listening, and until next time at the same time, I'm Brad Pistol, reminding you to stay safe so you can step into a secure future.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

You've been listening to Safe Money Radio with your host, Brad Pistol. Find out how to contractually guarantee that your hard-earned money is safe while avoiding market loss so you can have the retirement that you deserve. Call Brad Pistol now for your complimentary safe money book and safe money information kit at 866-780 safe. That's 866-780-7233. The preceding information does not represent tax, legal, or investment advice. Surrender charges apply to base contracts. Optional lifetime income benefit writers are used to calculate lifetime payments only and are not available for cash surrender or in a death benefit unless specified in the annuity contract. Fees may apply. Guarantees are based on the financial strength and claims paying ability of the insurance company. No information presented today should be acted upon without meeting with a qualified and licensed professional. Obviously, by calling us now, you are just taking the first step towards protecting your retirement. It's important that you read all insurance contract disclosures carefully before making a purchase decision. Rates and returns mentioned on this program are subject to change without notice.