Allison Demurs: Welcome to today’s CT Buzz. I’m Allison Demurs. Ben Fuchs, founder of Fuchs Financial, is with us today to talk about your financial toolbox, the variety of investment options that will allow you to build the retirement you’ve worked so hard for. In addition to being a certified financial planner, Ben is also a certified private wealth advisor professional. Ben, we all know that a carpenter prepares for a job by having a toolbox full of useful tools. Are there a variety of financial tools that should be used in preparing for retirement? Ben Fuchs: Yeah, absolutely. So Charlie Munger, who was Warren Buffett’s partner for a long time, used to talk about, “to the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” And so if I’m like a financial adviser and all I have are annuities or all I have are mutual funds, then every problem is going to be solved with that tool. And so what we want to do is not limit ourselves to just one tool. We want to have lots of different options because there are lots of different situations people have and we want to help people be prepared for all of them. Allison Demurs: Wonderful. All right. So, some of these are quite well known and people are generally familiar with them, but how about the options that people may be less familiar with? Ben Fuchs: Yeah, I mean, listen, there’s a whole list of things out there. We’ve got stocks, bonds, mutual funds. And I would say mutual funds are probably the things that people are most comfortable with because if you have a 401(k), a 457, a 403(b)—so whether you work for a private company, you work for a hospital, you work for the government—you have mutual funds in your retirement account. One of the things that people are less familiar with are something like REITs, which are real estate investment trusts. And those can vary greatly in terms of what they’re actually invested in. There’s a big difference between being invested in commercial property in New York and single-family homes and apartments in Florida. So depending on what you want to focus on and what you feel will perform well, that’s where you may want to invest. If you feel like things are depressed and going to recover, great. If you feel like they’ll stay down, maybe we leave them alone. In our practice, we tend to use a lot of structured notes—again, something people aren’t as familiar with. There are a lot of different ways to structure those and create scenarios that make sense for people. Our focus is on people who are retired or getting close to retirement. So what we generally want to do is replace the income that people lose when they retire. We do that by aiming to net about 8% after fees in interest that people can use to live on while maintaining their principal. Now, that’s not a guarantee—there’s risk involved—but it’s one option we use alongside other tools to help people have a comfortable retirement. Allison Demurs: Beautiful. So there are a lot of choices, a lot of tools in the investment toolbox. How should people decide where their money should go? Ben Fuchs: I think it all depends on your goals. First, when people retire, it’s about how much they need. If they have a pension, great. If they’re collecting Social Security, wonderful. Then the question becomes: how much do you need from your investments each month to maintain your lifestyle? For some people that’s a lot, for others it’s very little. Once we determine the income need, we focus on generating that income. After that, we create a safety net. That could be CDs, annuities, treasury bonds—whatever makes sense. The goal is to ensure that if one income source stops, your retirement doesn’t. Then we also have to consider inflation. Whatever you’re spending today—whether it’s $3,000 or $50,000 a month—it’s going to be higher in the future. So we need growth investments alongside income-producing ones to help keep up with rising costs. That balance is what creates a strong, sustainable retirement plan. Allison Demurs: How great is that? So we want to thank Fuchs Financial. They have offices located in Middletown, West Hartford, Glastonbury, and Mystic. And your initial consultation is complimentary, no obligation. Ben Fuchs: Yeah. People can go to our website, taxesandincome.com, or call 860-461-179 to set up an appointment. We’d be happy to help and answer any questions along the way. Allison Demurs: Thank you for joining us for today’s CT Buzz. I’m Allison Demurs. See you next time.
