Summary

In this episode, Amy and Mike discuss the key themes and topics covered throughout the year, focusing on resolutions, financial planning complexities, education funding, retirement systems, and what to expect in 2025. They emphasize the importance of understanding various financial topics, the challenges of sticking to resolutions, and the value of proactive planning for a secure financial future.

Chapters

00:00 Reflecting on the Year: Resolutions and Accomplishments

03:37 Financial Planning Insights: Common and Uncommon Resolutions

06:27 Understanding Complex Financial Topics

09:31 Education Funding: GI Bill and 529 Accounts

12:14 Navigating Retirement Benefits: Blended Retirement System

15:13 Looking Ahead: Upcoming Topics for 2025

Takeaways

• Reflecting on the year’s resolutions can provide insights into personal growth.
• Financial planning involves both common and uncommon resolutions that require attention.
• Some financial topics may seem simple but can be complex in practice.
• Understanding insurance and estate planning is crucial for financial security.
• Education funding options like the GI Bill and 529 accounts are valuable but complex.
• The blended retirement system has components that many find confusing.
• Long-term care planning is essential for those nearing retirement.
• Social security decisions can vary significantly between singles and couples.
• Proactive planning is key to navigating financial decisions effectively.
• 2025 will bring new topics and expert guests to enhance financial understanding.

Links

Schedule a consultation with Mike

Schedule a consultation with Amy

Transcript

Amy (00:03)

Hey Mike, I’m very excited for this show. This is our last show of the first year and we thought that we would reflect on some of the topics that we’ve covered over the last year.

Mike (00:15)

Yeah, and make sure you stick around to the end. We’re going to preview what we’ve got in store for 2025 when that starts rolling around. So again, thanks to all our listeners, and we hope this is a useful episode for you.

Amy (01:02)

So Mike, we started this year with New Year’s resolutions, just like many people start. So we started with five common and five uncommon resolutions. Mike, don’t think you set a resolution, but did you accomplish anything this year that you’re particularly proud of or feel makes this year particularly notable?

Mike (01:24)

don’t know about notable, but yeah, I didn’t set a resolution this year, but I did continue one that I set a couple years ago, which that’s, you know, just kind of become part of the norm now. And that’s continuing to work out. wanted to, as I retired, I wanted to make sure my health didn’t suffer and become one of those retired fat kernels. And so I

You know, have been pretty regular to the gym, still running. So that’s, that’s been the resolution that I kind of continued, but didn’t really set for this year. So how about you?

Amy (02:06)

Yeah, so I wanted to read more books, which I’ve done. It’s been a good adventure. throughout my life, I’ve mainly read nonfiction books, but I tried harder to read books just for sheer enjoyment. So I did do that. Also read more nonfiction books. And overall, 2024 has been a really great year. Just a lot of exciting stuff happening. Thanks for asking. I hope everyone else out there was successful.

successful in their resolutions as well, although we’ve talked about how hard it is to stick to them.

Mike (02:41)

Exactly. So yeah, as Amy said, we hit, we started off talking about resolutions and the first episode was really five common resolutions that a lot of people set. And those are save more, reduce their debt, invest more, make a budget and stick to it and save for college. So those were kind of the common ones that we talked about. And then

Amy and came up with some ones that are uncommon that people really ought to think about, either as a resolution or just something they’re going to get done at some point. those were visualizing retirements, insurance and protecting your family, estate planning, understanding your health, dental options after and vision options after military retirement.

and then tax planning. So those are kind of the 10 things. after we kind of did the intros, we spent the next few weeks or few shows going over all of those. So Amy, what kind of stood out of those?

Amy (03:56)

Yeah, I mean, I think as I look back on the year, what’s interesting is, you know, lots of things stay the same for financial planning and personal financial considerations. And that’s true here. I’m sure that there’s a lot of people who set out with one or more of these resolutions. I’m sure that there’ll be a few more that set out with one or more of these resolutions in 2025. But in terms of what stood out

for as I reflect back on this last year is just understanding that some things are very straightforward and some things are more complex and sometimes they’re deceptively complex. So for example, it seems like maybe insurance just seems straightforward. You should have it. Okay, but how much, what kind? Just so many questions. Understanding your…

how to use your GI bill benefits, lots of complexity there, retirement system. So I think that’s kind of the key takeaway is that these topics on their face can seem pretty simplistic, but in reality, they’re a little bit complex in some cases.

Mike (05:12)

Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. And like I mentioned, we kind of did the deep dive. So again, if you’re thinking about 2025 and what you want to accomplish, go back and check out either the top level podcasts or the specific ones where we dove into these things. Because as you said, they are complex. And I think about estate planning that

Again, like insurance, nobody really wants to think about those things because it’s dealing with death and what if something happens to me? But incredibly important and yes, military members and even retirees can get a free will done by the JAG. But a lot of times for especially families with young kids, that may not be enough. There’s some limitations of just having a will where

you may need to look into having a trust. And so some of those things like you highlighted, you really need to understand, take the time and get advice and get those things done.

Amy (06:27)

And the things that are basic, it’s relatively straightforward to think about how you spend money and things like that. It’s not necessarily complex, but it’s still super hard. I’ll tell a little story. So I was talking with an AI-powered personal finance app development team earlier this year. into our discussion, we were talking about human behavior and spending and things like that.

Mike (06:40)

Thank

Amy (06:57)

I actually joked and asked one of the engineers if they could build an app to make the phone, the cell phone, send a little shock if somebody walked into a restaurant even though they had already exceeded their dining budget for the month. And the team got a kick out of that. But the point there is is that there’s a lot of tools out there to help people understand their spending, but at the end of the day, it comes down to the human doing the work.

So some things are deceptively complex, some things are very straightforward but still really hard.

Mike (07:31)

Exactly, exactly. So, you know, one of the hard topics, again, the insurance, SGLI, survivor benefits, how you you’re thinking all about that. You know, we talked about that this year several different times. So if you’re coming up on that decision, especially as you approach military retirement and what you’re going to do or you’re separating from the military, you know, SGLI is going to go away. So, you know, what are you going to replace it with?

if you still need that coverage.

Amy (08:04)

Yeah, I mean, this is one of the decisions that sneaks up on service members as they prepare to retire.

you know they’re either either they don’t know that they have to make a decision around survivor benefit or they don’t understand how sgli is going to stay in place or not stay in place they don’t understand their options afterwards and so you know they there’s a lot of people that will listen to what their buddy did listen to what somebody on social media did or you know make decisions with advice from people that you know may not be delivering that advice in in the client’s best interest

those podcasts and keeping in mind that, you know, this is about your family’s financial future. it is best to be proactive when you can. And, you know, I’ll just also remind everyone that survivor benefit is your spouse’s decision. It’s, not yours. It’s your pension, but it’s your spouse’s benefit.

Mike (09:01)

But yeah, those are all those are all great points. So moving on to hopefully a happier and more exciting topic is we covered education funding again in several podcasts looking at the GI bill and 529 accounts and how you save and use those for college. So we again, very, very flexible.

new options with being able to transfer unused funds over to IRA if a student doesn’t use all their 529. So flexible and very useful. And then, like I said, we also did several shows on the GI Bill.

Amy (09:50)

Yeah, the GI Bill, I mean, it’s so valuable, but it’s so complex. There’s different versions, there’s different rules, there’s so many nuances between them. So those two episodes, I mean, if you’re preparing to send a child off to school in 2025, I would really recommend going back to listen to, those are episodes 14 and 15.

Mike (10:12)

Yeah, I totally agree. You know, getting it right can mean, you know, thousands of dollars saved and and, you know, maybe even schools that you weren’t considering because they were going to be too much. The options are there that, you know, the GI Bill could sometimes open doors that you you might not have originally thought about with, you know, things like the yellow ribbon. So, you know,

From there, we went to another equally complex topic and possibly even more so we did several shows on the blended retirement system, which was new just a few years ago. you know, a lot of the things that haven’t been around for that long, so they’re not particularly well understood. It’s getting better, but there’s still work to be done, especially around the continuation pay.

Amy (11:08)

Absolutely. mean, people.

Mike (11:09)

Thank

Amy (11:10)

People are generally confused about how the different components work. So the three components, TSP match, continuation pay, pension, and then with the pension, take the lump sum, don’t take the lump sum payout, how does it work if you do? So, you those episodes, if you’re preparing to retire under BRS, or if you’re a senior leader who has junior teammates, those are also good to review because, you know, the juniors are looking

up to the senior folks to help them understand what their benefits are and the senior leaders, you know, we didn’t fall under it. it’s not, we have our own worries to think about.

But it is super duper important. Mike mentioned the continuation pay. There’s a few things to keep in mind around that. It’s a small window for some folks. So making sure that you understand that can mean thousands of dollars of difference for you. But so many topics, Mike, so far. What else have we covered?

Mike (12:13)

We also hit a few listener questions and we want to say thanks for people who sent those in and if you have questions, please feel free to send them to info at operationretirementreadiness.com. We like doing those shows and we hope to do more in 2025. But a couple around long-term care planning and education and how do you balance that with retirement. On the long-term care, that was kind of a

first that we really delved into that. At the time, the federal long-term care program was not taking any new enrollees. They’d been on a two-year hiatus to kind of basically right-size or financially right-size the program and make sure the funding was all there. So that’s supposed to, you know,

based on when it went into hiatus in 2022, December of 2022, said for two years. So we’re coming up on when hopefully they’re going to open the program back up and probably have some new information. So we definitely got that on the list for next year. Once that information comes out, we’ll digest it and definitely want to talk about it at that point.

Amy (13:36)

Absolutely.

Long-term care is one of the things that’s often on the minds of clients who are in what we call the retirement red zone. So within a few years of retirement. Another topic that’s often on those retirement red zone folks is social security. So we covered that program over three episodes. So one dedicated to the decision for folks who are single, usually pretty much straightforward. But then we also covered the decision

for couples, which can be far more complex. And then we also added in a case study show that helps folks contextualize the information that we covered in the first two social security episodes.

Mike (14:19)

that brings us to the last episode before this, our 25th episode. So that was on the year end planning checklist. And so hopefully you’re going through and checking all those things off diligently before we hit 2025. And I really can’t believe we, you know, this is number 26. I don’t know what I really expected when we started talking about doing this, you know, over a year ago.

And but I really enjoyed doing these, Amy. So looking forward to 2025.

Amy (14:56)

Yeah, yeah, I really can’t believe that we’re closing out our first year together. It’s been an awesome ride with you, Mike. So looking back, you know, we’ve we’ve had a great year. Let’s let’s go ahead and give listeners a preview of what’s coming for next year.

Mike (14:58)

Yeah.

All right, that sounds great. So we’ve mapped out the first few months so far. Don’t know exactly what the order will be, but some of the topics that we definitely want to hit are looking at the financial services industry in general and the different types of financial service professionals you might encounter from financial planners to financial coach to wealth advisor to a broker.

and what all those different things mean and how those business models work as you try to navigate. Because one thing that we always see a tick up in is people toward the beginning of the year think, I got to find an advisor this year. So we want to help and provide some education around those things. And then it also occurred as I was going through the list that we’ve never really done

kind of background issue or background episode on Amy and I to talk about how we got to where we are, what exactly we do and how we do it. So we’re gonna fix that probably near the beginning of the year. So what else do we have on the list, Amy?

Amy (16:26)

Yeah, so one of the things we’re going to try and do that’s a little bit different is to bring on some guests who are experts in their field. We have a few ideas. We haven’t locked anything down yet. So we’ll wait to announce specifics. But.

In addition to having guests, we’re planning to talk about TRICARE, how that changes at retirement for active duty folks, TRICARE for life. We’re also going to talk about the new health care flexible savings account that military members are going to have access to early next year in 2025. And then as we mentioned before, we’ll talk about the federal long-term care program, assuming it’s back online. And we’ll also cover VA home loans that comes up often as well.

Mike (17:09)

All right. And as I said, we do like doing the questions show. So again, if you’ve got questions, please send them to info at operationretirementreadiness.com. And we’ll make sure we include that email in the show notes. So keep the questions coming.

Amy (17:29)

Mike, again, it’s been such a great ride with you. You’re real pleasure to work with. I wish you and your family a peaceful holiday season and happy 2025.

Mike (17:30)

.

Yeah, thanks. The same to you and the same to all our listeners. And just one note, you know, we typically release every other week. We’re going to take an extra week break, enjoy your holiday season. And so the next podcast will be out January 9th instead of January 2nd. So again, Amy, here’s to a great first year and looking forward to year two and 2025.