Take the Fork: Yogi’s Wisdom on Making Financial Choices

In this episode, we’re diving into some famous words by the one and only Yogi Berra. You might know him for his legendary baseball career, but Yogi was also a goldmine of wisdom. We'll spin some of his classic quotes into financial advice. It's all about viewing things through the right lens—so let's see what financial insights we can uncover from Yogi’s memorable sayings!

 

Helpful Information:

PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/

Contact: 813-286-7776

Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com

 

Disclaimer:

Speaker 1:
PFG, Private Wealth Management LLC is an SEC registered investment advisor. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. The topics and information discussed during this podcast are not intended to provide tax or legal advice. Investments involve risk and unless otherwise stated are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor and or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed on this podcast. Past performance is not indicative of future performance insurance. Products and services are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed insurance agents.

Marc Killian:
In this episode, we're going to dive into some famous words from Yogi Berra. We're right in the heart of baseball season, so it seems fitting to do a little classic wisdom from Yogi and some financial lessons here with the guys. This is Retirement Planning Redefined with John and Nick.

Speaker 3:
The rules of retirement have changed. No longer can most of us rely on social security or a single pension to fund our futures. We're living longer and retirement doesn't just last a handful of years anymore. Instead, you might stay retired for 20 or 30 years and maybe even more. We need to look at retirement through a new lens with fresh eyes, with a new approach and plan of attack. Here to answer the call are financial advisors John Teixeira and Nick McDevitt of PFG, Private Wealth Management, serving you throughout the Tampa Bay area. This podcast is Retirement Planning Redefined, and it starts right now.

Marc Killian:
Hey, everybody, welcome into the podcast. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast here with John and Nick and myself. And I don't know why I said podcast twice, but I did. Thanks for hanging out with us and we're going to talk about Yogi Berra. We're going to take the fork in the proverbial road, and have a conversation with the guys and just get some financial lessons from some classic Yogi-isms. This guy had some great, great, great quotes through the years. Fantastic baseball player, obviously a legend, but his quotes were pretty good as well. So we're going to talk about that this week here on the podcast. What's going on, Nick? How are you, my friend?

Nick McDevitt:
Doing pretty good. Getting over a little bit of a cold, but finally turned the corner.

Marc Killian:
Yeah. Okay. I know you're a football fan. Are you a baseball fan as well?

Nick McDevitt:
I grew up a big baseball fan. My grandfather... My mom's side of the family is Cuban, so baseball's a huge deal. And I grew up a Mets fan, which is torture, but really kind of phased out of baseball probably over the last maybe seven, eight years, harder to kind of hold the interest.

Marc Killian:
Gotcha, okay. All right.

Nick McDevitt:
Yeah, but did grow up really enjoying baseball.

Marc Killian:
Nice, nice. Well, John, how are you doing, my friend? And what about you? Did you enjoy your baseball growing up or are you a fan?

John Teixeira:
More of a basketball and football fan, but no. Growing up in Boston, you kind of automatically get sucked into the Red Sox aura. Growing up, I could understand Nick's pain, but then they kind of pulled through as in my college years. But I will say I'm excited. The Celtics is just won the NBA Championship, so-

Marc Killian:
This is true. Again, yeah.

John Teixeira:
That's a good thing I'm happy about so.

Marc Killian:
Yeah, and they've got quite the team, so there's a good chance you might see them again next year in the run for it as well.

John Teixeira:
Yeah, yeah, let's hope so. Let's hope so.

Marc Killian:
They're stacked pretty well.

John Teixeira:
Marc, real quick question as we talk about football is what do you think of Drake Maye? He was there in North Carolina.

Marc Killian:
Yeah, it was interesting. Curious to see how he's going to do. I don't know. I mean, he played pretty well here, so we'll see how it translates. When they go to the NFL, you never know, right? It's a crapshoot. Didn't work out so well for Trubisky when he went to Chicago.

John Teixeira:
No, it didn't. No, it didn't.

Marc Killian:
So we'll see how it goes for Drake, but let's get into some baseball here. We'll talk about some Yogi Berra Again, this guy had some classic lines here, so this should be a little fun. And really they're kind of fitting not only to just finance, but just our world seems today. Yogi's been gone for a while now, but these things kind of fit with our society and the crazy world that we're living in. So let's jump in. Whoever wants to take this first one here. Pretty apropos considering what we've been facing the last couple of years, when Yogi said a nickel ain't worth a dime anymore. Boy, that's the truth, isn't it? Right now?

John Teixeira:
Yeah, that couldn't be any more true than right now in the kind of time we're in. Inflation over the last few years, really, post COVID has just gotten, ramped it up with the supply chain issues and then the influx of cash going in. It's just a double whammy with what's been happening and as it relates to planning, I've seen a lot of clients happen to really pick and choose what they're spending money on because primarily the cost of food. And I could tell you myself personally, I feel like my food bill has doubled, but not 6 or 7%. I feel like certain things have doubled in the last few years. So inflation is a big thing you got to be aware of when you're doing your finances. And then here in Florida, and Nick can speak to this, and what we've seen is the homeowners insurance is outrageous.

Marc Killian:
Oh, I bet. Yeah.

Nick McDevitt:
Homeowners and car insurance have really been a huge, basically like a rocket ship. As far as expenses, John mentioned the groceries. One of the things that we do from a planning standpoint is, especially in times like this, I think where some people kind of make a mistake is they start to really mess with the inflation rate that they use in the planning instead of just repricing where their expenses are now versus where they were maybe a couple of years ago. But from the standpoint of between groceries, car insurance, homeowners insurance, we have a huge section of clients that those numbers, those three categories specifically have probably doubled in the last three or four years.

Marc Killian:
After the hurricane a couple of years ago, I imagine some of that got worse too, yeah?

Nick McDevitt:
Yeah, but we have hurricanes every couple of years.

Marc Killian:
That one was just obviously pretty massive.

Nick McDevitt:
For sure. And the hurricanes have a big impact on the car insurance. So a lot of people-

Marc Killian:
Right. That's what I was thinking. Yeah.

Nick McDevitt:
... yeah, don't necessarily think about that per se.

Marc Killian:
All the flooding and stuff, yeah.

Nick McDevitt:
Yeah. Some of the other laws that are in the state of Florida based around insurance make it on the higher side in general, but companies have really ramped those up.

Marc Killian:
Oh, I'm sure. Yeah.

Nick McDevitt:
I think Citizens, which is kind of the insurer of last resort, which is state-backed, just I think applied and got approved for, I want to say a 14% increase. So there's a lot of pressure on people right now, especially in Florida.

Marc Killian:
For sure. All right, well a nickel ain't worth a dime anymore. Yogi had that one, right? How about this one, guys? I mean, you got to love the simplicity of his lines. If you don't know where you're going, you might wind up someplace else. Yeah, I mean if you don't know where you're going, you could end up someplace completely different.

Nick McDevitt:
Yeah. It is funny when reading through some of these how apropos they tend to be and how they line up from an industry standpoint where having a plan, having stated goals that you're working towards, having a clear vision of what it is that you want in retirement, make a really huge impact on your habits and overall the probability of having a successful retirement. So these quotes have really kind of stood the test of time.

Marc Killian:
Oh, for sure. Yeah. Johnny, he said the future ain't what it used to be. And again, if you think about the world we're living in right now, how many people of a certain age are like, "Man, that could not be more true." But even from a society standpoint, but also even just in what you guys do, it's not what it used to be when it comes to finance and retirement planning, even just a couple of years ago.

John Teixeira:
Things have changed drastically. You look at my parents, they worked for the most part at one place, had a pension, retired, and it was pretty easy for them from a retirement standpoint. They had to really keep their expenses in check. But when they retired, it was Social Security, pension, luckily cost of living adjustments on both of those things to keep up with what we discussed there with inflation, but it was much easier. But what's happened throughout the last, I'd say 10, 15 years, maybe 20 years or so, as the companies have been putting the risk onto their employees to say, "Hey, you know what? We're not going to do the pension anymore, but we'll still give you a benefit. But retirement, your investment is now going to be your responsibility."

"While you're working to make sure you're investing the right amount and picking the right options, and then while you retire, now it's on you to figure out what's the best solution for supplementing your retirement income." So it's definitely ain't what it used to be, which is very important to make sure that when you do retire, it's a different game where it's not accumulation. You have to realize that money needs to last throughout your retirement and you have to put together different strategies to make sure that it does do that, not just like you have a pension that's going to guarantee for life so.

Marc Killian:
Yeah, all the changes to the Secure Act, both versions, clearly the onus is more and more things have been put saying, "Hey, this is on us to do what we got to do for our futures here." And they're putting some rules in place to kind of help out a little bit, but at the same time, if you're not reading the tea leaves, you're going to get left behind there. And that's why you got to work with a financial professional to really help you get sound advice so that you can be set for retirement. I should have segued it this way because, Nick, if you don't, it's going to be like deja vu all over again, which is another Yogi-ism, which is classic.

Nick McDevitt:
Yeah, it's things changing rapidly. It's interesting because there's always kind of the perspective of zoom out. We talk about that a decent amount where from a smaller sample size or even if we look at things from a micro standpoint, yes, the way that the tools in investing change rapidly or have changed quite a bit in the last few years, how AI is coming along and what the impact of that's going to be and those sorts of things.

But when you zoom out, these things are cyclical. So even though the technology may be very new and the way that maybe things react are different than they were before, there's been other times in history where the technology at that point has been new and the way that things react are different. And there's a lot of different quotes out there about how history is really kind of the greatest teacher. And when you zoom out, so many of these things have happened before. The subplots are different, but so many of these different things have happened before. And it kind of goes back to having a good plan, having the ability to adapt to what's going on, kind of not painting yourself in the corner because really the only certainty that we have is change. So it's pretty wild.

Marc Killian:
That's a good point. And John, I think for this kind quote was like deja vu all over again. Most people kind of feel that way about the market. It's like, "Oh man, here I go again." Especially if you got burned at any time for any amount, it's like even a little dip here or there. And it gets you a little panic, especially if you are over 50 because you start thinking, "I can't afford to get rocked again." Even though... And the weird thing about the current time that we're in is news is always changing and always causing issues, but sometimes this market kind of just kind of rebounds and you think what's going to be the next thing that does it? And soon as you think it's going to happen, it doesn't happen. So it's very hard to read right now.

John Teixeira:
Yeah. Yeah. It is definitely hard to read because people... Just looking at clients, it's, "It is now the right time to put money that's been on the sideline to get back in?" And it's always hard to determine when that is and try to time things. It comes back to the kind of fundamentals of staying the course and not really panicking depending on what's going on. Because like Nick said, there's always going to be something happening. Things may change a little bit, but there's always going to be something happening in the world. So you stay the course, stick to the plan, and you find those people do much better than the ones that kind of jump around based just looking at behavior.

Marc Killian:
Okay. Well let's wrap it up here with a final Yogi-ism, for us sports fans of any kind for your team if they're not doing well, it works appropriate for that, because it ain't over till it's over. And that's pretty classic line for any kind of sports mantra. You still got a chance maybe to come back in. I mean, just look at what's going on right now as you guys are in Florida with the Stanley Cup, right? So we're taping this episode here before the final game seven's going to happen, and who would've thought that being up 3-0, Florida would mess up and allow Edmonton to get back in it and tie it up and go to a game seven? So it's not over until it's over, depending on what your viewpoint is, and I guess you could say the same thing from a financial standpoint. If you've made some mistakes, it doesn't mean it's completely over. Get a strategy, start working on it.

Nick McDevitt:
We've had kind of conversations recently with people where there's been a good run. COVID was an up and down year, but outside of the market drop in last year, which a lot of people have almost forgot about, things have been good, really post recession, Great Recession. So we're talking 10 plus years at this point, and some people have kind of taken a step back and some of these changes that are happening with the inflation that we talked about and maybe a little bit more volatility, we're in an election year, all these sorts of things. It's important to make sure that you keep updating, try to stay on top of things, don't necessarily just kind of check out. So I think it's important to stay engaged and involved.

John Teixeira:
Going through the ups and the downs of planning, talking about the Stanley Cup here, you want to make sure also when you're building a plan, you want to stress test things to understand when things do really get tough, what is your plan going to look like? So we just did this with a few of our clients where we test market downturns. Things have been good for a while. What happens in your plan if all of a sudden we have two years of negative 15, negative 20%? How does your plan look? If it doesn't look good, what are we going to do to adjust it? You can stress test it with taxes, inflation. Just making sure that whatever happens, whatever scenario you run in, you're flexible to adapt to it. And if you currently can adapt, making sure we understand how do we make you adapt.

Nick McDevitt:
And even just to kind of add to that, and this ties in with some of the things that we had already talked about. A little perspective is always good from the standpoint of three years ago, four years ago, whenever we were a couple of months into the pandemic, in reality this was an event that most of the people alive had never been through before. Everything changed and then there's still obviously fallout from it, but we got through it. And when you think about it from a planning perspective and markets and all that sort of thing, sometimes taking perspective of what you've actually been through, what you've seen, and the fact that we were able to move through it is really important.

Marc Killian:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, when it first started, the market first started dropping, that initial bit there, people were having the reaction that we're going to see it drop 50% like it did in 2008 or '09. It wound up maybe being 30 or so percent. But then it also rebounded within just a couple of months, so a lot faster than people thought. So it is not over till it's over. So these are some good Yogi-isms, and it all kind of works really well with financial planning and strategizing. So if you need some help with that, make sure that you're reaching out to John and Nick. If you're already working with them, that's fantastic.

Make sure you subscribe to the podcast. If you're not, maybe share the podcast with others who might benefit from checking out the message and the conversation. And you can find them online at pfgprivatewealth.com. That's pfgprivatewealth.com. And you can subscribe to Retirement Planning Redefined on Apple or Spotify or whatever platform you like using. Just type in Retirement Planning Redefined or again, visit them on their website for all the tools, tips and resources at pfgprivatewealth.com. Guys, thanks for hanging out. And John, good luck with the new puppy you got.

John Teixeira:
Thanks, appreciate it.

Marc Killian:
Appreciate it. Nick, hope you're feeling better, my friend. We'll see you next time.

Nick McDevitt:
Thank you.