Retirement Planning Education, with Andy Panko

Andy discusses the ins and outs of Trump accounts:
Legislative background
How to open them
How to fund them
Investing inside them
How to distribute from them
Reporting around them
Taxation of them
The two potential worthwhile use cases I see for them

Links in this episode:
My in-depth write-up of Trump accounts, including all of the links I referenced in the show - Trump accounts: what they are, how they work, and use cases

Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email andy@andypanko.com

To follow Andy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Andy summarizes the recent 2026 annual Social Security trustees report, including what it would actually mean if the system's trust fund were to deplete, and what changes can be made to ensure that doesn't happen

Links in this episode:
The full 2026 Social Security trustees report - here
Summary of the recently proposed PROMISE Act - here
The recent episode of Inspired Money with me, Wade Pfau and Mary Beth Franklin discussing all things Social Security - here

Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email andy@andypanko.com

Andy's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Listener Q&A where Andy talks about: 
Should Roth conversion analysis look at marginal or effective tax rates ( 4:21 )
His thoughts on why qualified Roth account distributions might eventually be included in certain measures of Modified Adjusted Gross Income ("MAGI") ( 8:28 )
What other MAGIs are potentially impacted and should be watched out for with doing Roth conversions ( 12:38 )
The difference between "directionality" and "precision" in retirement planning ( 20:40 )
Is it reasonable for an advisor to charge you extra for outsourcing some of their investment management to a separately managed or sub-managed account ( 25:38 )
His thoughts of reinvesting a deferred compensation plan to all cash when the plan will soon begin paying out its deferred payments ( 29:34 )
His thoughts on using multiple dividend and fixed income funds to create a "high income sleeve" for near-term distribution needs ( 35:25 )
Whether it's accurate that you can indirectly file a tax return extension simply by making an online tax payment and select "extension" as the reason for the payment ( 39:05 )
Can a minor with less than $400 of self-employment income not file a tax return yet still be eligible to contribute to a Roth IRA ( 44:56 )
How he helps clients balance Fear of Missing Out ("FOMO") and Fear of Running Out ("FORU") ( 52:04 )
How much of his planning work with clients is computational vs psychological ( 54:42 )
His thoughts on the gamification of investing, and the prediction markets ( 58:11 )
Why there are so many different funds like buffered ETFs and option trading ETFs, at higher expense ratios, when many can just invest in a few basic low-cost ETFs ( 1:00:36 )

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email andy@andypanko.com

Andy's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Links in this episode:

Episode 207 of the podcast - Roth conversion analysis; more than meets the eye

Tenon Financial monthly newsletter/blog - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

Andy chats with a real person (not an advisor) doing their own retirement planning. In this episode, Andy talks with Tom. They talk about a wide array of retirement planning topics such as when he started getting serious about planning for retirement, why he went back to work as a consultant a year after retiring, why their plans of relocating to a different state have since changed, what his Roth conversion plan is, and more!

 
 Links in this episode:

Tenon Financial monthly e-newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email andy@andypanko.com

Andy's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypanko/

Andy and Tanya Nichols from Retire Agile share their thoughts on a handful of current events and "hot topics" relating to retirement planning. Specifically, they talk about:

How we help clients get over the hurdle of actually spending their savings ( 10:27 )
Their thoughts on having mortgages in retirement ( 22:27 )
What they think is likely to happen to the Social Security system, and what changes might be made in advance of the trust fund depleting in a few years ( 34:56 )
When people should start spending down their Health Savings Accounts, or HSAs ( 44:10 )
Some state-specific tax planning considerations to keep in mind ( 53:07 )
Their thoughts on living/revocable trusts, when they're needed, when they're not, etc. ( 1:03:12 )
Alternatives to bond for people looking for investments that sit between the volatility and growth potential of stocks, and the stability and principal protection of cash and cash equivalents ( 1:16:39 )

Links in this episode:
Retire Agile website - https://www.retireagile.com/

To send Andy questions to be addressed on future Q&A episodes, email andy@andypanko.com

My company newsletter - Retirement Planning Insights
YouTube channel - Retirement Planning Education (formerly Retirement Planning Demystified)
Retirement Planning Education website - www.RetirementPlanningEducation.com