Teachers could potentially lose 40-50% of their income if they don't take proactive steps to secure their retirement. How do your retirement specialists help teachers better understand their pension plans and explore additional retirement savings options? That’s why Local company, Appreciation Financial is helping teachers plan for their retirement. Learn more at www.appreciationfinancial.com
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00:00 Kids in Arizona are headed back to school and that means so are teachers.
00:06 They have so much to worry about these days. Curriculum, class size, but one thing
00:11 they shouldn't have to worry about being unprepared for retirement. That's why
00:15 Terry Kennedy is here from Appreciation Financial with some tips for teachers.
00:21 Yes, for teachers. Thank you so much for being here. You wouldn't think that
00:25 teachers have some very specific things that they need to consider in terms of
00:30 their retirement. What are some things that take them by surprise? Well, one is
00:34 what we call the pension gap. They're shortfall when they go to retire.
00:38 The average teacher actually only gets about 60% of their retirement, of what
00:43 they're earning in retirement. So the next day after they retire, they're
00:48 getting 60% less than they were making the day before. That is not fun. I don't
00:52 like that arithmetic and I'm sure teachers don't. So you focus on
00:56 educating educators about how they can make the most of their retirement?
01:00 That's correct. So you would think that the pension companies themselves would
01:03 do the education. They don't. So we come along and we say, "Hey, let's look at your
01:09 gap, your retirement gap from your pension and then figure out how do we
01:13 fill that." And that's called a 403B or a 457 plan. And we give them, we go in
01:19 there and educate them on how to use those and save a way to add to their
01:23 pension. Your company specializes in just helping teachers. I had no idea this was
01:28 the thing. So nationally, and here in Arizona, you work exclusively
01:33 with teachers, educators, administrators? That's right. Yep. And almost every
01:38 district in Arizona. The guaranteed income options that you offer, can you
01:43 elaborate on those and how they help provide some security and protection for
01:47 teachers' savings? Yeah, so teachers aren't aggressive investors. We know that. So we
01:52 have safe money strategies, we call them, that help them make sure that they have
01:57 like no downside but only upside potential. And so we use those for the
02:02 teachers and they just love them. It's just like putting on
02:06 autopilot. Right, because like you said, you find that teachers are pretty
02:11 conservative in terms of how they want to invest. Yes, they are. I mean, they
02:16 didn't become a teacher because they're aggressive, you know, type of people. They
02:19 became teachers because they're conservative and they want to have
02:23 good, they want to have good safe money strategies to put their money in. It's
02:28 such a difficult job. It gets more and more difficult. Burgeoning class size,
02:32 there's new challenges all the time. So it's nice to think that if you've worked
02:37 hard and you've been really a public servant all these years, that you could
02:42 have a comfortable life after you retire. Well, that's really important because
02:45 they obviously don't get paid. Teachers don't get paid what they could probably
02:50 maybe get paid on the outside, but they do have a pension when others don't. So
02:54 they really need to stay and enjoy the benefits of the pension in order for it
03:00 to all make sense, right? And so, but that doesn't change the fact that they need
03:04 to fill that gap. It's still short and then we help them do that. And in the
03:10 school market, they have many options to go with and we go in there and help
03:15 them select which options to save away to add to their pension. So I have
03:20 cousins who are public school teachers, aunts, uncles, and they range in age. So
03:25 I'm curious, does somebody right out of school at 23, 24 need to think about this?
03:29 Is 50 or 55 when to think about this? What age teachers should be reaching out
03:34 to you? The sooner the better. I mean, obviously we want to talk to them at any
03:38 age, but when they're, if they start younger, the rule of 72 compounding
03:43 interest is in their favor, right? And so, um, so the longer they have of the
03:49 horizon to to retire, invest and retire, the better they're going to be. However,
03:54 when they've already been going and have a chunk of money and don't want to lose
03:59 it to the market before they retire, then then they need to talk to us also.
04:03 Okay, math teachers compounding interest. Nobody understands that better
04:08 than you. So sooner rather than later, before we go, I know you've shifted a
04:12 lot to digital appointments and teachers are so busy so they can do all this
04:16 digitally. Now, absolutely. We can meet with them in by zoom or by google meet
04:22 or one of the safe ways to meet digitally. It saves a lot of time for
04:27 both the teacher and for our advisors. And uh, but we still beat kneecap to
04:33 kneecap to. We're happy to go to the school and meet with them too. I've
04:36 never heard that before. Kneecap to kneecap. And some people are more
04:39 comfortable kneecap to kneecap like we're doing now. That's right. So you
04:44 have the option to still meet in person if you want to do that. If you want to
04:47 be on on google or zoom, you can do that too. What's a good way to reach you
04:51 guys? Well, you can go to our website at appreciation financial dot com and uh,
04:56 and we can direct you right from there. Terry Kennedy, thank you so much for
05:00 looking out for the teachers who are doing such a great job looking out for
05:04 our kids stick around. We have more of the Arizona Daily mix right after this.
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