80% of Participants Failed This Financial Literacy Test - 1

Original publish date February 14, 2016 (hour 1). Welcome to the Your Money, Your Wealth® podcast: retirement planning, investing, and tax reduction made fun. Hosts Joe Anderson, CFP®, and Alan "Big Al" Clopine, CPA of Pure Financial Advisors have been providing financial education on the Your Money, Your Wealth® radio show in Southern California since 2008, and on the Your Money, Your Wealth® television show in San Diego since 2014! In this, the first episode of the YMYW podcast, Big Al tries to stump Joe with the financial literacy test that Forbes says 80% of participants failed.

3:08 “Just because the balance of your overall portfolio goes down, that doesn’t necessarily mean you lost money – that’s volatility; that is normal in any type of market cycle”

7:03 “Another thing you should be doing is tax loss harvesting, so you want to harvest some of the losses if you have down positions. Sell those and buy something similar to take those losses on your tax return”

8:05 “An article out of Forbes Magazine reveals that 81% of Americans failed a basic financial literacy test”

8:44 “Planning for your retirement can be scary, but when you think you know what you’re doing and you really don’t, the final outcome could be really scary”

12:22 “What’s interesting about this is a lot of folks who took the test were very confident in their abilities to retire successfully (yet 80% failed the test)”

20:59 “Which of the following types of long-term bonds typically have the highest yield? Triple A-rate corporate bonds, B-rated corporate bonds or treasury bonds?”

24:56 “Anything that comes out of a retirement account that you took a deduction for is going to be paid full ordinary income tax and the state of California tax”

26:11 “As a CPA I would honestly say, it’s been 30 years+ in the business and it does amaze me how many people fail to get the message about tax planning until they make a mistake that costs them thousands of dollars”

32:10 “There is an age limitation on IRAs, so after 70 ½ you can no longer contribute to an IRA, however if you’re over 70 ½ you can still contribute to your employer-sponsored plan”

34:06 “When do you want to do your Roth conversions? When the market is down!”