Retirement For Life

Tech-Savvy Retirement: How Technology Can Improve Your Life - Ep 33

• Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP® • Season 2 • Episode 33

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To get the full RFL experience, watch the episode here at https://youtu.be/VLWR9pCIXWU

Technology offers retirees powerful tools for staying connected with family, managing finances, and enhancing daily life. We explore essential apps, demonstrate how ChatGPT can transform retirement planning, and share strategies to protect yourself from increasingly sophisticated scams.

• Communication technologies like FaceTime help grandparents maintain close relationships with distant family members
• ChatGPT serves as a free personal assistant for everything from planning trips to creating customized meal plans
• Rocket Money helps track subscriptions and unusual charges, saving users thousands of dollars
• Password managers like Dashlane provide essential security for all your online accounts
• Health apps offer medication reminders and store important medical information
• Photo-sharing tools like Skylight keep grandparents updated with family photos
• Scammers increasingly use sophisticated techniques including deepfake calls mimicking family members' voices
• Always verify requests for money by independently contacting the organization or person through official channels
• Check email addresses carefully and be suspicious of any communication with broken English or unusual urgency
• Technology adoption enhances retirement rather than complicates it

Download ChatGPT today—we promise it will change your life and might even help you impress your grandkids with tech knowledge they don't have.


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Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Today we're going to be talking about why all of us should be embracing technology more often that little glowing thing you have in your hand, that little thing called a phone. By the end of this podcast, I guarantee you you're going to be able to show your kids and your grandkids ways that they can use their phone and technology that even they don't know. We're going to give them probably 10 great apps that they have to be using, and we're going to dive into what every single person on this planet should be using ChatGPT. My mom should be using it, your folks should be using it, my wife should be using it. We should all be using it Today. Why retirees should be embracing technology.

Intro:

Let's get started. Cpa, the passionate retirement specialist, and president of Sear Financial Wealth Advisors, the independent registered investment advisor specializing in the AIM retirement system.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So I want to say that we're going to cover four things today the reasons we're going to have some real life stories. Andrew's going to have a story. I'm going to have a story. Em's going to have a story of people who've used technology. We're going to show you how ChatGPT is going to have a story.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I'm going to have a story. Emma is going to have a story of people who've used technology. We're going to show you how ChatGPT is going to absolutely change your life and how you can get it and why you should use it and why it will change your life. We're going to talk about probably the best apps that I think everyone loves. We're also going to help if we can keep it within 20 minutes.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Try to keep it in 20 minutes Of how you should avoid being scammed and things you can use that you make sure that you're safe. So let's get started.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

I can start on technology. I think technology, especially for retirees, is a very integral part of communication. Most of our clients have grandkids in different towns and different states and they can't really communicate with them, you know, unless they use things like FaceTime. It's really amazing the tools that we have to be able to communicate. It's almost as if you live in the same state as your grandkids. Communication for me is one of the biggest things and I have, you know, the app that I'm going to share later is a huge part of that keeping in touch with family members the app that I'm going to share later is a huge part of that keeping in touch with family members.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I'm going to pick up my mom, my dad and my wife today. Okay, my wife gets a washing machine the other day. It comes in Apparently now. Washing machines don't come with an owner's manual. There's nothing, there's no paper, there's no folder, there's nothing. You have to download an app. And she says I don't want to download this app and I don't want to. What she's really saying is I don't want to embrace technology, but guess what?

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

When she downloaded the app, she figured out better ways to use the machine. She figured out features like it plays a song after the wash is done, it tells you on your phone when your wash is going to be finished, and it even gave her an extra year warranty just because she embraced technology. What examples do you guys have of embracing technology?

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

I'm going to pick up my mom too Good.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

It's fun to beat up on your parents.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

My mom has medication she's supposed to take every day, right, but she doesn't ever remember them. So if you simply use the reminders app on your phone, you can set reminders that tell you when to do things, and I use it all the time. So if it's not in the reminder app in my phone, I probably am not going to remember to do it.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

So that's true. I think there's a huge learning curve with technology. I'm going to pick on grandpa, your dad. I FaceTimed him the other day and I the first thing I see is his ear. You know he's holding it up to his ear. He doesn't quite understand that I'm FaceTiming him instead of calling him, and then when he realizes I'm on his screen, he pulls it back immediately, starts sharing his screen somehow. I'm like, oh gosh, you know he's trying, he's doing his best to embrace it, but there is a learning curve for a lot of people. Should we?

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

just. Should we take a second, though, and say that we love our parents and our grandparents? Yes we do Okay, so this is like critical love is what it is, all right, yep.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Yeah, and the thing that my mom and dad are doing well now is that there's these outfits that will help you with technology. The one that I think most people know is the Geek Squad. Like, mom and dad bought a TV just recently and I am very proud of them because my mom said I'm just going to call the Geek Squad and they're going to put it up. But I looked it up. There are other outfits that I think retirees and all of us should embrace. Did you guys have you ever heard of Can Do Tech? It's C-A-N-D-O-O-T-E-C-H Can Do Tech. This is very much like the Geek Squad. They will help you from afar, they will FaceTime with you, they will do a call with you, but it's specifically for people who are older. Like me. I'm starting to have issues. I used to be the guy that, if there was a technology problem, called Chris no, but I think embracing these technologies, these groups that will help you, is a great way to start embracing technology. So can we talk about ChatGPT for a second?

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Yes, my favorite. He's like my friend at this point Chat.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

First of all, let's start with this. No, I'm going to start. If you are listening to this podcast, I insist, I demand that you either stop listening to the Retirement for Life podcast or you download the ChatGPT app on your phone. It's free. Let's start that, I insist. Okay, it's going to, I guarantee, improve your life. How would you explain what is ChatGBT to a person listening to this podcast?

Emma Bean, CFA®:

So it's an AI model, basically, where you can talk to it like it's a real person. You can input any scenario you want. You know, help me reword my email, help me visualize X, Y, Z. You can literally speak to it as if it's a human and it will give you answers from the internet and help you, either, you know, fix up your writing or give you answers that you need.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

We're going to show examples here in a second that you must use. Andrea, how would you explain ChatGPT to people listening?

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

I mean, what I personally like to use it for is just helping me sound more professional in email, or even it's helped me write a thank you card.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So yeah, Okay, so I'm going to use ribs as an example.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Okay.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I'm always wanting to cook food better. I'm never very good at it, and so here's what I did before chat GPT. Good at it, and so here's what I did before ChatGPT how do I cook ribs? Do you know how many websites in the world.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

There are about how to cook ribs. So you literally spend 30 minutes deciphering. Okay, this website says do this, this website does that. But ChatGPT the way I look at it as a guy in his 50s is it just summarizes all 500,000 rib websites into one crystallized message. Now I just asked ChatGBT, how do you cook ribs? And it says based on all these websites, do this, this. So for me it's like an indexing thing. It goes through the internet.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

It has logic, it has reason and it just summarizes all the information out there into a nice little message. So let's go through some examples.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

So I found a couple of fun things to use ChatGPT for. So the one thing I found was you can actually play games with ChatGPT. So you just enter into the prompt can we play a trivia game? And it says sure, do you want to play easy, medium, hard, do you want to?

Emma Bean, CFA®:

do multiple choice.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

So it's kind of fun. You can play a game with it and it kind of goes back and forth with you.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

This is like your personal friend, your personal assistant, like, hey, I'm lonely, talk to me, right? Yeah, there's so many capabilities, but I love where you're going with this, so go ahead. So what is it?

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

Yeah, so you can tell them even what specific area of trivia you want to play. So I say 1980s trivia, let's do multiple choice.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I can't wait to see this.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

Yeah, so it's fun Okay.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So what is this chat? What does it say here?

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

It just says can we?

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

play a trivia game. Okay, this is great.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

And then it'll ask you what do you want to do specifically, so specifically. So I just chose 1980s trivia, four players, and then I, yep, you can do multiple players, you can do specific genre of trivia. Oh, my gosh you can tell them. You know, do you want it to be easy, hard, you want to be multiple choice, and it'll just kind of, and it just does one question at a time so you're sitting there, you're on the couch and you feel like a little trivia.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

You just use your chat gpt app and you ask it this okay, so let's play. How many questions are we going to do?

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

I think I did four.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

You did four questions okay oh my god, this is fun okay, in the matrix 1999.

Brooke Fay:

Which color pill does neo take?

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

red, blue, green, that's red I knew you'd know that one I don't know it, but I was gonna guess red I wouldn't even know. I would have said green, whatever.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

That's cool. I didn't know you could do that. And the cool thing about GPT is you can really customize it to what you're looking for, like, for example, if your doctor says, oh, you have to work on memory or whatever it is, you can specifically say that I want to work on memory.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I want to work on my memory. A game related to that. Oh, I should do that. I can't remember what I had for breakfast this morning. It's because I didn't have breakfast. I was going to say did you have breakfast?

Emma Bean, CFA®:

That's cool.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I like that. All right, this is Brooke's prompt. What do you got here, brooke?

Brooke Fay:

Okay, so I've used this before. You can create a grocery list and if you want to get more specific, you can even say create a grocery list for me, for all these and I said I would like to eat low carb, high fiber. Also, please include five days worth of breakfast and dinner ideas. Would like to spend around $100.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

And ribs.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

That's cool. Okay, that's cool because how many times you go to?

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

the store and it's like, okay, all right, so what? What does it say, though? Planned meals?

Brooke Fay:

I gotta see this so it says you got it, here's a low carb, high fiber meal plan for you. And then it gives me ideas for breakfast for five days. I should use this.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

I never know what to put on my grocery, yeah it is.

Brooke Fay:

It's nice for different recipes. That's really so.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So we should say about Chachi BT it remembers things about you, right? So for example, if you say, my husband loves ribs, it will work ribs into the list, or if you're on a specific diet.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

you know like I need to be on a salt-free diet or whatever, and it's super customizable, like if you say, oh, number four, I don't love salmon, replace that one, or give me a recipe for number four. It'll give you a recipe, which is super cool, yep.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

And also you can say things like remember this about me my husband loves ribs.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Right.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

You know it will remember. You can specifically say or, if you want to, you can say anything you want to, okay.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

That's cool.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So can we do mine? Yeah, all right. So Jamie and I are planning on taking a trip in the car, and we just kind of want to start seeing some sights. It seems like we haven't been able to do that, and so I started using ChatGPT the other day, and I was amazed by what it produces for an itinerary. So, brooke, read my prompt. It's a long prompt.

Brooke Fay:

My wife and I are 52. We would like to take a relaxing trip from Chicago to Sarasota. We plan on leaving around May 7th and arrive around May 12th. The trip should include two nights in the Great Smoky Mountain region with at least one scenic hike. Create our trip itinerary including stops along the way, hotels, restaurant activities at each stop. We love being active, listening to music, craft beer and barbecue, and we don't need anything fancy.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Yeah, so for anyone listening, the first week of May I'm going to be in the Great Smoky Mountains. So if you want to talk to me, come to the Great Smoky Mountains, because apparently there's no cell service. Yeah, look at this itinerary, just look at this. All right, brooke, tell me what I'm doing.

Brooke Fay:

Absolutely so it looks like the total drive time is about 20 hours split over five days. Chicago to Louisville five hours. You're going to check in and do a stroll along the Louisville Waterfront Park.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Where am I eating dinner?

Brooke Fay:

Looks like you're going to be eating dinner at Feast Barbecue, known for their smoked meats and craft beer selection.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

You think they have ribs. So it just has every stop and of course, like Emma said, you can change it. So, for example, you could say stop right there. It says in the morning you're going to hike the Alum Cave Trail. You can, at the bottom, where it says ask anything, you can just type in go ahead and type this in Instead of the Alum Trail on Friday morning, suggest something else, and it will do it. You know.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Yeah.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So okay, so that's ChatGPT. It is like the free personal assistant you never had. You download on your phone and it's just something that everyone should be using. Don't be the last person on earth not to use a telephone. Okay, just don't be that person, because this is something that we need to embrace.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Okay, so my prompt is you know, I didn't realize you could do this with chat GPT, but you can upload photos. And let's say, you upload a picture of your backyard and you want to do some landscaping, and you can be specific with it If you have a certain flower that you like or you want to include a fire pit or something like that.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Andrew, you could do this for your furniture in your home. Rearrange my furniture for me Right.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

So you upload the photo and then you give it a prompt. My prompt would just be like include a small vegetable garden and you know some flowers or something like that, and you hit enter. It takes a minute or two and then it comes back with a very realistic picture.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So let's see what this looks like.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Oh, emma. Yeah, it's cool, it's very realistic and you can customize it if you have a certain flower that you like, or whatever.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

It is Okay. So ChatGPT, just really simply what to watch. You can say look, this is what I love about Netflix. This is the shows I like. These are what my husband and I like to watch. Yeah, Cooking, amazing Traveling. We showed you Just really easy stuff. It's so great. Download it on your phone. You promised me you would if you listen or watch this podcast. Now let's go on to part three, because there's not just Chet Chibiti, there's tech tools we love. I'm going to go first, can I?

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Yeah, yep.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

There are so many things that people just don't realize are out there, and I am a CPA. I am a certified financial planner. I've been in this business now for longer than I want to admit. We spend a lot of different monies on different things, both personally and here at the business. Rocket money I'm not exaggerating has saved me over $3,000. You put in your credit cards, you put in, if you choose, to your bank accounts, Rocket Money. Now, this is a very well-known company. They will go through all of your expenditures and they do a couple of things. They will identify unusual charges. You will get an email. It will say and this happened to me there's a $2,500 charge for. Are you sure this is okay? Do you want to review this? Guess what happened. I don't know, Brooke, what happened.

Brooke Fay:

We shouldn't have been charged for it.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

We shouldn't have been charged $2,500. This was something that we caught, saved us $2,500. We emailed the vendor. They sent us the $2,500 back.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

Wow.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Even worse in these days. You know how can technology hurt you, because you sign up for something for $9.99 a month and pretty soon you have 50 subscriptions and you've lost track of what you have. Rocket Money will follow your subscriptions. It will show you your subscriptions and each single one you'll say, oh, that looks good, that looks good. No, I signed up for Disney Plus like five years ago. I don't even watch it anymore. You can hit a button.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

It will cancel it for you, that's nice.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Rocket Money is an app that I think and here's the coolest part Did you know that when you use Rocket Money, you can choose how much you want to pay for it? That's cool. It gives you the option, something like between $5 and $10 a month. What do you want to pay for this?

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

Why wouldn't you pick five?

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

You should play guess the number game. I think you guys know what I picked.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Yeah, I know, you picked seven, right, I picked $7 a month.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I thought that was fair, so I'm paying $7 a month for Rocket Money and it saved me over $3,000 so far. Okay.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

That's cool. That's my app. Yeah, what other apps? One we have is Skylight. It's great for grandparents who don't get to see their grandkids often or they don't get sent photos often. It's an app where all of your family members can download it and they can upload their most recent photos to the Skylight app. That's cool. And then those photos automatically show up on your digital picture frame and you have updated photos at all times.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Skylight, that's great.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

Keep that in mind for Christmas.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Brandon, what's your app for our listeners?

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

My app is Dashlane or something similar.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Everybody has to have this.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

Yeah Well, I mean, I know a lot of people that I've even helped log into things. They're like oh, this is the password I use for everything. That's exactly how you get hacked or get scammed on things, because it's so easy to guess your password.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

It's like my aunt. God rest her soul. When I was in charge of her stuff, I took over everything, including her passwords. She had a library of passwords in her journal and half of them were wrong. Dashlane is a lifesaver and it doesn't have to be Dashlane. There's other password tools.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

I mean, even your iPhone has a password. It just basically encrypts your passwords, it generates your passwords, it saves your passwords.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

It's so handy and you can use it within your web browser within your phone. It's just great and you can use it within your web browser within your phone. It's just great, Brooke. What's your app?

Brooke Fay:

Mine is the Apple Health app. It's actually just on every iPhone you don't have to download anything.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

She's always about health. I love it.

Brooke Fay:

It tracks your steps, your sleep, your heart rate, if you have an Apple Watch. But also the cool thing is it has a medical ID section so you can put in medications or allergies or even your emergency contacts.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So I think that's cool, okay, so let's review. So far, our listeners have agreed that they're going to download ChatGPT. I can just picture certain clients that I love, that I've worked with for 10 years, saying Chris told me, and they're going to come up to me and say I downloaded ChatGPT. Chris, can you help me work it? No, it's easy, you just put it in there. There's other apps. I wrote these down. Luminosity that's a great one for retirees. It's like brain training games. Okay, goodrx has anyone used GoodRx? Everyone should be using GoodRx. It should be on your phone. It saves you money. Mapmywalk you guys? This is the coolest app for walkers out there who need to be active. Map my Walk it's free. The basic version is free. You can just map anywhere you want to go. Okay, let's talk about Facebook really fast. Is that the best way to keep in touch with the world?

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

I wouldn't say the best way, but it's a good way.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I think for retirees it's a great way yeah.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Most of your family is on there. You can see updates.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I'm going to pick up my mom again. Okay, I'm just going to pick on her. She decided to get rid of Facebook. I don't know why, okay, but like she's out of touch. Well, how did you learn that? Well, because me and 5 billion other people have Facebook.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

I can pick on my husband for that one, because I'll say he'll say something to me.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I'm like I already know he's a how Facebook yeah and this is not something you have to stare at, for you know three hours, but you, there's just cool things going on with your family, your loved one, your friends you know. And then I wrote down life 360. You should be tracking your partner. You should know where your husband's at all times my kids, kids driving grandkids I they're driving Grandkids.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I mean, just the other day, emma was like where's grandma? And she looked up on her phone and she, well, grandma's right here. Yeah, this is a valuable tool tracking yourself. And then my favorite is a notepad feature. Everyone should have a notepad. It's inherent or not inherent, what is it called?

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

It's native to your iPhone and to all the time.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Yeah, keep track of stuff, so apps that you can use, all right. So in our last minutes, can we talk about not getting scammed?

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Yep, yeah, this is huge now. I mean, every where you look, there's, you know, posts on Facebook, whatever, saying here's a new scam, watch out for it. And they're getting a lot more clever with the way that they scam people. One of the things that I've heard recently is the deepfake phone call. So it's basically like AI takes one of your loved one's voices and makes it seem like they're the ones calling you. And it's not always something that's like out of the ordinary, like so-and-so is in jail. I need bail money. It can be basic things, like you know hey, grandma, I have this medical bill I can't pay off. Can you send me a couple hundred dollars? I'll pay you right back. And it's something where, if it's coming from that person's phone number and they make it seem like it's that person calling it, can be a real issue.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

Andrea phone number and they make it seem like it's that person calling it can be a real issue. Andrea and I had a real life story about this with our customer. You want to tell that story really fast, yeah? So he called me and said my mom had this phone call from her granddaughter saying she needed money and she sent it.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

She was in an accident or something. She was in an accident needed money.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

So she sent the money and come to find out it was just a fake scammer on the phone.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

But she lost-.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

Thousands of dollars.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I think like $40,000 or more. Oh my gosh, yeah, and that's a customer's mom and he called us up and was like what should I do?

Brooke Fay:

I'm like oh gosh.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Yeah, my example is a lady who lost $661,000 to scammers Okay.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So basically, let me tell you what happened to this poor lady. Marjorie Bloom lost her life savings. The man claimed when he called okay, right, there, that's a tip Nobody calls anymore. Nobody calls, and one of the classic things is they pretend to be somebody of authority, like a official. This person claimed to be a fraud investigator from PNC Bank and she had been a longtime customer there. The investigator persuaded her that criminals were using stolen personal data and were pilfering her life savings. To protect her money, she had to create new accounts immediately. She did that and then now listen to this poor lady. She's 77 years old. They told her now look, we're transferring this money, you're going to get a call from our bank officials in about 20 minutes and they'll set you up with your new passwords and everything. And she waited for three days for them to call back and they never called back until she realized that they had taken $667,000.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

Oh my gosh.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

So the lesson there is anytime somebody calls, and even deep fake, even if you think it's your granddaughter if there is a sense of urgency, if there is something critical happening, you think about it. Who would really be the first person to call me If my granddaughter was in an accident? Would she call me first to ask for money? And these are the things you have to think about. And you've got an example. Who else has an example?

Brooke Fay:

I have one. Actually, me and my husband both got this. We got-.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Were you guys scam Brooke.

Brooke Fay:

No, Well, thankfully he doesn't do anything with our money and anything, so he just sends it to me. I'm like don't touch that. But we got a text message from the Illinois tollways and said click here to pay your unpaid tolls, and you know he's always for work going through tolls, so he just sent it to me. I'm like, no, that is fake.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I think there's some basic rules, right. If you get communicated to, whether it's email, whether it's a phone call, whether it's a text, don't respond to it. Pick up the phone and figure out who you would call. So if PNC Bank calls you and says you're getting robbed, don't just say okay, let's transfer $661,000. Say thank you, can I call you back?

Emma Bean, CFA®:

Yep.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Then look up the PNC Bank number and call them and say am I really getting robbed right? Urgency, we talked about it. If somebody says we have to do this now, that's a red flag. Urgency we talked about it. If somebody says we have to do this now, that's a red flag. And then can we show email Very important, show my email screen here. This is an actual email from an actual employee here at Sear Financial. Okay, tell me what's wrong with this email.

Andrea Brannon, CFA®-IF:

Well, that's not her email address.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

That is not her email address. Okay, so when somebody calls you, or emails you, rather, and says you need to do this, it looks like that's my employee, right? You know, that's the lady that I've worked with for five years. And she, what did she say? Oh, she's opened a new bank account in preparation for next week. Okay, now I know Kayla again, use common sense. Do you think she'd send me an email? She'd walk right up to my desk and go Chris, I set up a new bank account. But just, even if you are still fooled, just look at the person's email address. It looks like Kayla is sending me this email, but that's not her email address. Right? This is a great one. I was fooled. The other day. I sent Emma a Facebook thing because somebody was liquidating everything they had in their entire life.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

He sends me a link to this Peloton.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

I'm like Emma, there's a Peloton for 500 bucks you got to get it. It's on Facebook.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

It's spam.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

It wasn't spam in my mind, because it was posted by a friend. He said my dad is going to a nursing home and I am selling all his stuff. I go, Emma, there's some stuff.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

And Emma, because she's smarter than I am.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

She goes, dad, this is a fake. But I went back and I looked and you know what was so obvious that I missed. It was written by somebody whose first language was not English. It was not English, it was broken English. You know and anytime you see any hint of somebody not speaking proper.

Emma Bean, CFA®:

English, it could be a red flag. So for sure Bottom line if, if you're suspicious at all, if it doesn't sound right and it's relating to your finances, for sure, you should for sure double check, call who you would normally call to confirm Definitely before you send out any information or money. You need to be 100% sure.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

Okay, so let's close this by apologizing to the people that we've made fun of today. Mom and dad, if you're listening, I absolutely love you. You've raised a wonderful man. Of course, all of us should be embracing technology. You should be using things like rocket money. You should be using things like Chachi BT. Don't be the last person on earth not to use Chachi BT, just like you shouldn't be the last person on earth not to use an oven. Do people still use traditional non-oven baking methods? Maybe Like a fire, I suppose? Don't be that person. You're retired. It doesn't mean that you can't use that little white thing Now, that little glow in the dark thing, that little thing that they call a phone. Use this stuff, learn something, play trivia with yourself, teach your grandkids something they didn't know, and embrace technology as a retiree. What are we doing next week for Retirement for Life, brooke?

Brooke Fay:

I don't know. We'll have to talk about it.

Christian Cyr, CPA, CFP®:

See everybody next week.

Outro:

Investment advisory services provided by Sear Financial Inc. Sec-registered investment advisor. All content on this podcast is for information purposes only and should not be considered investment, legal or tax advice. Material presented is believed to be from reliable sources and no representations are made by our firm. Thank you.

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Christian J. Cyr, CPA, CFP®

Host
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Andrea Brannon

Co-host
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Emma Bean, CFA

Co-host