Misconceptions About Retirement Planning

I need to share with you misconceptions about retirement planning and how people think of their retirement. Many people have been taught by educators and even financial planners to think of their retirement dollars as a pile of money. For example, you might have $200,000 in your retirement account right now and be thinking that to retire, that you need $500,000 or some other made-up figure. Now I have to tell you that this type of thinking ruins more people’s retirement than our volatile stock market and all of the scam artists combined. It’s not about how big that number is. It’s about how much income you have.

I know people that have almost nothing in their retirement accounts and are living very comfortably in their golden years. So the question becomes how do they do that? The concept is called passive residual income. Now passive residual income is money that comes to you every single month, regardless of how much money you have in your bank, or your ability to work. It comes from not thinking of your money as an account value, but rather as an income value.

To the extent that you work, you have a secure source of income, but when you retire, you need to replace that secure source of income with secure sources. So that could be social security. It could be a pension if you’re lucky enough to have one. However, most people are going to have what we call an income gap that they’re going to have to fill from their asset base or their retirement accounts.

Now the question becomes, do we want to look at those assets those retirement accounts as one big pile of cash. Do we want to leave that pile of cash in the world’s greatest Casino? The stock market… susceptible to upward and downward volatile market swings? Or do we want to use that pile of cash and transform it into something that will provide you with the same reliable income similar to what you had while working?

So it’s essential to think that your assets are an income-producing vehicle rather than just a number in an account. Now, some sources of passive residual income can be commercially leased property that pays you a positive cash flow month after month. Other people have oil wells that pay per month royalties, then there are those of you who have become my clients at Crown Haven.

Over the last decade, I’ve shown my clients at Crown Haven, how to take their IRA 401k or other retirement accounts and turn them into income accounts that will grow until they’re ready to retire so they can enjoy it for the rest of their life guaranteed. Our mission statement at Crown Haven is to ensure our clients worry less about their money and spend more time enjoying their lives. And that begins with building a secure foundation for income. My customized RetireSHIELD®retirement plan will help you to change the way you think about your retirement money.

If you want to do something, we invite you to work with our financial planning team and open an account that will give you up to a 10% bonus on your initial deposit up to 7% compounded interest. Most importantly, we will help provide you with a lifetime of income you will never outlive. You can even make sure your lifetime income lasts for the life of your spouse. Part of our RetireSHIELD® Wouldn’t it give you peace of mind to know that your spouse also won’t outlast your money?



Listen to Casey Marx, Smart Money episode “Smart Money – Sledding Analogy, Guessing Game, Noble Soldier, and ABCs” on the player below or on your Apple Podcast App or Android device.

Is Your Retirement Money A Parked Car?

I was watching a car auction on the TV the other day. One beautiful car after another went over the auction block, some selling for more than $100,000. The commentators kept on referring to the cars as either a driver or a trailer queen. Now for those of you who are not familiar with classic cars, let me explain. A driver is a vehicle you can use to drive daily. A trailer queen is a car you don’t drive because you’re afraid to use it.

How do you see your retirement? Are you going to use it and enjoy the next phase of your life or be afraid to use it? Is it polished and shiny sitting in the corner? Your nest egg will be safe, but will it be doing anything for you?

Inflation and missed opportunity can have a deteriorating effect on your retirement like a parked car. There’s nothing wrong with CDs, and money market accounts for the money you need for emergencies. In fact, every time I meet with someone, my first and foremost priority is to make sure they have money set aside for emergencies. If they don’t, then I have to respectfully let them know that I can’t work with them until they do, I believe having emergency money on the side. Many of you are treating your retirement money like your emergency money. It’s time to make that money working.

If you have a broker, he’s probably giving you the same message. He’s probably telling you that you need to keep your money active and working for you. Let me be very clear, so you don’t get confused. When a broker tells you to get your money active, he’s most likely telling you to put your money at risk. That’s not what I’m talking about.

What I’m telling you is that you need to get your money participating in contractually guaranteed returns without any market risk. In other words, I want to put your car in drive, but at the same time, keep your car from crashing. Don’t let your retirement get into an accident or rust away sitting in the garage. Let’s work together to put your retirement into action, providing you with guaranteed growth and a lifetime of income.



Listen to Casey Marx, Smart Money episode “Smart Money – Parked Car, Deal or No Deal, Black Swan, Sledding Analogy” on the player below or on your Apple Podcast App or Android device.

How Much Money Do You Have In The Market?

How much money do you currently have in the market? All of it? 50% 80%? Did you make a conscious decision to have that particular percentage exposed to market risk? How did you decide stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, bonds, annuities, or maybe a professionally managed wealth management account? Or… Did it just sort of happen?

Why would I be asking this question? I say it all the time, markets go up, and the markets go down. So how much of your life savings/retirement is exposed to market risk is a very important consideration. That is why I strongly encourage everyone to think of their money in terms of red money, and green money.

Now, those terms might sound a little childish or funny, but I believe they help us understand a very important concept. Let me explain. Red money is money that we are willing to expose to market risk, and we are willing to do this in hopes of a higher return. We accept the possibility of losses even significant losses in hopes of greater gains. Red money is exposed to upside, and downside market risk. Now green money is about safety and security. With green money, we are not willing to accept the risk of losses. So we’ are willing to accept a lower return in exchange. Green money does not have downside market risk. So if red money is exposed to upside, and downside, and green money has only upside, which one is better?

That is probably the wrong question to be asking, because neither one is inherently good or bad. It all depends. The very important questions we should be asking ourselves are these, what percentage of my money should be in red money? And what percentage of my money should be in green money?

Now, if you are at or near retirement, you should ask yourself if any of your money should be in red money? Can you afford to lose any of your retirement funds? Would you rather take two steps forward and three steps back or just take one step at a time and never take a step back?

Hear the rest of my thoughts and listen to the Smart Money podcast below.

If you believe you could better navigate retirement with the help of a team that has 40+ years of experience with financial and retirement planning in the Indianapolis area I would like to invite you to schedule a complimentary meeting to see how we can help.

How Do You Measure Investing Success?

How Do You Measure Investing Success? I was talking to one of my listeners the other day, and we’re gonna call him Joe. He was mentioning how his friend made a 22% return in the stock market last year. For many reasons, I usually don’t give a statement like that much attention. I don’t even ask what they were invested in, because claims like that are rarely true. The 22% return rarely accounts for fees, taxes, other things that bring the real return down. People love to talk about a 22% return in reference to one investment they have with just a portion of their money.

Someone has a million dollars and invests 50 grand into an investment they get a 22% return on, guess what they talk about at parties. So a 22% return on 5% of their money might make a good story over some cocktails. But mathematically, it’s really not that impressive.

More importantly, people never talk about the money they lost. They definitely don’t talk about the total return they made on all of their money.

For some reason, this time, I didn’t let it slide. I had what you would call an impulsive epiphany and asked Joe if his friends spent all the money as soon as the year ended. He asked me, what do you mean? I asked Joe again. Is the money gone? Did he spend it? Joe said no, I don’t think so. So I asked Is it still invested where he made the 22% return? He said, I don’t know, but I think so.

I asked a question that Joe will never forget. I said, Joe, then how do you know he made a 22% return? The phone went silent. I could hear the gears turning in his head. And then quietly, humbly, Joe answered. I don’t know, Casey.

Some of you have already figured out why a 22% return is not a 22% return if it’s still invested. Let’s illustrate this with some other questions. If you’re married, and you have one really good year of married life, is that a successful marriage? If you have children, and you win father or mother of the year for one year in that child’s life, does that make you a successful parent? If you have a job, and one year you exceed in every expectation your boss had for you. Does that mean that you’ve had a successful career?

Hear the rest of my thoughts on how to measure investing success, the purpose of money, and the guessing game by listening to my Smart Money podcast below.

If you are one of those people that don’t want to see their entire life’s efforts disappear overnight, because of something you have no control over. If you still want to grow your money with generous growth opportunities with the help of a team that has 40+ years of experience with financial and retirement planning in the Indianapolis area I would like to invite you to schedule a complimentary meeting to see how we can help.

Preservation Of Your Retirement Principle

My emphasis is on the preservation of your retirement principle, participation in market gains, and a lifetime of income that you cannot outlive Crown Haven planning prepares you for a retirement that you can count on. This is what we do to ensure your hard-earned money is 100% safe from any and all market losses. We simply stay away from things that can lose your money. That means we don’t use stocks, bonds, mutual funds, or variable annuities. You see, when you suffer a loss in the market, even a small loss, you have two problems.

At Crown Haven Wealth Advisors, we use our program RetireSHIELD® based on specialized financial planning that can provide first-year returns of up to 10% or more. We also include contractual guarantees that you will never suffer a loss because of stock market declines while locking in your yearly gains with no fees or loads taken from your deposit. Now on this program, my message is different from what you normally hear on financial planning shows, largely because my concepts are different.

First, when an investment loses value, that lost value is the first problem. The second problem is the time it actually takes to make back that loss. That is if you can even make it back at all. Now your money can’t be working for you. If you’re losing that money could be gone forever, destroying your opportunity for compounding for two reasons.

Continue Listening To This Week’ Podcast

Red And Green Retirement Money

This week’s Smart Money podcast is about red money and green money and how you should diversify your financial portfolio to prepare for retirement.

Here’s a question, how much of your money is currently in the market? All of it? 50%? 80%? Did you make a conscious decision to have that particular percentage exposed to market risk? Or did it sort of just happen? Why would I be asking this? Now, as I’ve said before, the markets go up, and the markets go down. So how much of your life savings, that is exposed to market risk, is a very important consideration. That’s why I strongly encourage everyone to think of their money in terms of red money, and green money.

Now, those terms might sound a little childish or funny, but I believe they help us understand a very important concept. So let’s explain this. Red money is money that we’re willing to expose to market risk, we’re willing to do this in hopes of a higher return. We accept the possibility of losses, even significant losses, in hopes of greater gains. Red money is exposed to upside, and downside market risk. Now green money is about safety and security. With green money, we’re not willing to accept the risk of losses. So, we’re willing to accept a lower return in exchange. Green money does not have downside market risk. So if red money is exposed to upside, and downside, and green money has only upside, which one is better? Well, that’s probably the wrong question to be asking because neither one is inherently good, or bad. It all depends.

The very important questions we should be asking ourselves are these: What percentage of my money should be in red money? And what percentage of my money should be in green money? Now, if you’re at or near retirement, you should ask yourself if any of your money should be in red money? Can you afford to lose any of your retirement funds? Would you rather take two steps forward, and three steps back? Or just take one step at a time, and never take a step back? If you’d like to learn how to step forward and never backward, call for my free, Baby Boomer Retirement Boot Camp book, and my free RetireSHIELD® kit. Both of these could change your financial life for the better.

The guy that sits down at the blackjack table and freaks out when he loses, should not have been betting with that much money. The guy that sits down at the blackjack table, and loses, and gets up, and has a great evening for the rest of the night, you know it didn’t matter to him that he lost the money. So if you’re at all concerned when the market drops, shouldn’t be in red money. You don’t go to Vegas and put $500,000 on red. You just don’t do that. So it makes it easy to decide, you have to ask yourself this question. If I were to lose some, most, or all of my money in my accounts, would I be upset? If the answer is yes, then your money should be in green money.

Let me tell you what red money is good for… the young and the rich. Now, the young have time on their side, they can afford to lose money in the hopes that they’ll make it back in the future. The rich can afford to lose a little bit of their money and still live comfortably. But I’ll tell you, even our clients that have means, the folks $5 million, $6 million, they don’t want to lose it either. Because the reality is, if you’re at or near retirement, you should definitely be in the green, you don’t have a lot of time to make it back. Green money is money that cannot be lost due to market declines.

Many people, economists, well-known advisors believe that all retirement money should be green money. Personally, I think that makes a lot of sense. Many people I work with, regardless of age, want 100% green money because they know they can have upside market growth without accepting any downside losses. And they understand math. They’ve looked at it. If you go forwards and never backwards, you’re gonna go farther, quicker, than if you get a huge gain and then take half of that away. Isn’t it time for you to go green with your retirement?

Not only can you have some upside growth without any downside market risk, but you can get a first year bonus of 10% on your entire deposit, all your money, just for opening the account. You can also lock in guaranteed growth of up to 7% on the lifetime income account. How about that? No downside market risk, a bonus, and guaranteed growth on the lifetime income account of up to 7%. Contact us today and I’ll arrange to show you how it works.

What Is The Risk Involved With Retirement Planning

Things you can’t and you need to control and hold on to with every fiber of your being the things you can control because there’s so much you can. The risk has its place but you have to understand what that risk is and you also have to understand what fees you’re paying and the laws of the financial world are written as such that your your only shown those fees at the very beginning of an investment in a in a prospectus which is about 300 pages thick that nobody reads that even Alan Greenspan formerly said that if you had a doctorate in mathematics you wouldn’t be able to understand some of this stuff and that’s that way for a reason

I am personally not a proponent of mutual funds they are a watered-down version of something called the modern portfolio theory which was written in 1952 by a guy named Harry markowitz and essentially what he said was that the ideal portfolio would be let’s hold 50% of your money in a stock that pays when it rains and 50% of your money in a stock that pays when it shines it rains In his hypothesis no matter what you would end up ahead well that’s wrong If you have 50% of your money and something that pays when it rains and 50% of your money and something that pays when it shines and it rains the best you’re going to do is end up even

The problem with that is mutual funds after banking when retail in the 1980s mutual funds are watered down version where upon number one you’re dealing with a salesman so they just want to sell you something The mutual fund companies are more concerned with the adequate marketing of their accounts than actually providing you something of value and then because there’s about 15 different people that need to get paid there are astronomical fees so risk has its place but if you’re going to invest in something that has risk you need to know that risk You also need to know those fees.

Contact us today if you want to minimize risk, while maximizing returns and getting more time.

Time, Money & Energy Of Financial Planning

Time, money, energy….What is important to you? What does that pie chart look like? What’s really important to you? How do you want to balance it?

That should be defined right at the outset you know because and this change is over time too The beginning of your career you might be all about the money You might be willing to sacrifice the time. People need to sacrifice the energy but then you get to 55-60. I’ve been doing this for several years and my energy is a little bit more important to me now. My time is a little bit more important to me now. What are you doing in order to give it back to yourself because the same stuff’s not going to do it

Time, money energy This is for anybody in the business world It’s for clients getting ready to retire It’s for anybody but until you’re honest with yourself on what’s important You are like a blind man trying to find a meal It’s It’s not there and often we get told what we should be wanting by others and then we get angry at others for pursuing those things You got a choice everyday but put yourself in the position in order to achieve it and part of what we’re doing

Crown Haven is where providing people with the expertise and the tools in order to better balance their time and energy so they worry less about that money and spend more time enjoying their lives. Contact us to learn how we can maximize all your variables for retirement.

What Age Should I Start Retirement Planning?

The age is younger than you think the reality is that the national average for invested assets are investable assets at the age of retirement is just under $100,000 it doesn’t take a skilled mathematician to determine that if you’re income is $50,000 a year or $100,000 a year and you want to take from that and nothing else occurs risk doesn’t happen fees don’t occur nothing else occurs You’re going to run out of money really quickly It’s very important that people start thinking about this at a very young age.

The only reason that I’m so cognizant of it is I sat there and watched my mom lose nearly everything and as a younger person that got me really thinking about what to do for myself and that in turn led me to the businesses that that I’ve helped build.

If you would like to have the top financial advisory firm in the Indianapolis, Indiana area working on your side increasing your return while decreasing your risk contact us today for a complimentary review of your portfolio.

Retirement Can’t All Be for Nothing

I learned the hard way that retirement can’t all be for nothing by first helping my mother. Now, after nearly a decade of helping hundreds of families in the Indianapolis area step confidently into retirement, there are many mornings I reflect on just how I was able to put myself in a position to be afforded the honor of doing so.

How I got here is very easy to map out with the benefit of hindsight.

Yet I dare say that without my why, I wouldn’t be in the field of retirement planning at all.

I grew up as an only child during the ‘90s in the middle-class suburb of Mukilteo, Washington.

My formative years were spent riding my bicycle a mile up the road to “shag” golf balls from the woods at Harbour Pointe Golf Course to then sell those balls back to the golfers at the range at a discount; while my friends’ parents were driving newer, fancier luxury cars and buying bigger, fancier houses — my first car was a ’78 Cadillac Seville with a bum alternator.

Even so, my childhood was mostly ideal, and I planned to go on to attend college at Gonzaga and study medicine.

Then on May 16, 2002, my father passed away. Thank God, my dad lived below his means. On top of the loss of my dad, the family lost $100,000 in annual income, and needless to say, I wouldn’t be going to Gonzaga.

With my dad gone, I felt the need to step up and be a real partner for my mom. With this understanding, I took on two jobs in high school, and I paid my way through community college before transferring to a University on grants.

In the meantime, we had a family friend, a principal at a major brokerage house managing the family savings.

We all know what happens next. The Great Recession wiped away trillions of America’s wealth, and my family was no exception. At the low, my mother had lost over 60%. The answer she received from our family friend, the principal at that major brokerage firm when she was terrified for her future, was to “ride it out.” Even at that stage in my life, and with the limited financial knowledge I possessed, I knew that answer wasn’t good enough.

That was the day I decided to take my financial planning future into my own hands.

I never expected that my burning desire to redeem myself for my own perceived inadequacy in helping my mother as a teenager would lead to a full-fledged financial advisory practice, but it has. I have learned more about retirement planning, 401k rollovers, employee stock purchase plans (ESPP), 529 plans, IRAs, life insurance, and estate planning than I have ever dreamed.

My ‘why’ is that every day when I wake up, I’m granted the ability to live vicariously through every single client that comes through my doors and ensure that with the proper planning, they will never experience the fear and uncertainty that our family endured.

Recently, my mother and I were speaking on the phone about the growth my firm has enjoyed, and I recalled a low moment in 2012. I had just moved to Denver to pursue my business, and things weren’t going well; I had just enough money to pay for rent. In my possession were two fully-matured Series EE Bonds my dad had acquired in 1986, worth $1,000.00. It broke my heart to cash them, and I pictured them someday framed in my office as a reminder to remain resilient.

On the call, my mother, in tears, asked, “what happened with the bonds?”. The next day, I sent her a photo of the framed bonds in my office at Crown Haven.

Her text back said: “It Can’t All Be For Nothing.” I agree.