Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Any examples used are for illustrative purposes only and do not take into account your particular investment objectives, financial situation or needs, and may not be suitable for all investors. It is not intended to predict the performance of any specific investment and is not a solicitation or recommendation of any investment strategy.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Welcome to Take Pride in Retirement, the podcast dedicated to helping members of the LGBTQ community protect and grow their hard earned money. Get set for a show full of education and insights with your host and advisor, Matt McClure. We recognize every family is unique. The goal of the show is to help you achieve financial freedom so you and your loved ones can have the retirement you've always dreamed of. A retirement you can take pride in.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: No matter who you are, where you're.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: From, or who you love.
So now let's start the Show.
[00:00:55] Speaker C: Here's Matt McClure. Hello and welcome to another edition of Take Pride in retirement. Matt McClure here with you, your host and your advisor, your friend, your pal, and your confidant. Thanks so much for being a part of things. As always, this is the show where we talk about LGBTQ plus retirement issues. We talk about them with clarity. We talk about them with dignity.
And it's all especially for you as a listener to this show and to you, no matter where you are. Thank you so much for being here, for showing up for yourselves, for taking control of your financial future.
I appreciate it, but I know that future you is going to appreciate it even more so. So I appreciate that whole concept. There's a lot of appreciation going on, which is actually very fitting because it's Thanksgiving week. So I'm thankful for you. Hopefully you find something to be thankful for in this particular episode of the show and we've got a good one here. This time around, it is all about a couple of different things. One is there's a little bit of good news, bad news when it comes to prices this Thanksgiving season. I'll talk about that in just a bit, but there are some Social Security changes coming up for the year 2026, and I want to make you aware of those and I want to make you aware of them through an LGBTQ plus lens. Why does this matter to you? Right, specifically. So we'll talk about that.
Go to takepride in retirement.com take pride in retirement.com that's the show website. You'll find out a lot of great info there about me. Listen to past episodes of the show, be linked to all of our socials. Check us out on the old YouTube machine. Would appreciate that. Things slowly but surely getting going there better and better each week. And so I would appreciate you liking and subscrib to the video version of all of this content that we're putting out. And I just. The whole point of the show is just to put out positivity, right? To put positivity out into the world and to put a positive spin on the things that you can do to actually improve your life, make your financial life better, and give you that retirement that you can take pride in. No matter who you are, where you come from, who you love, how you identify, how much money you have, any of the things. There are no minimums to work with me. There are no maximums to work with me.
I will work with you no matter what the situation is and find out if we can improve it for you. All right, so we'll take a look at where you are now and where you could go. So that's. That's kind of just the gist of what I do, and I do that to help people each and every single day. It's what I'm passionate about. All right, so I'm going to get to the.
The. The meat of the show, I guess, here in just a minute. I have to.
If you're watching the video version of the show, I mentioned YouTube a second ago, you'll probably notice slightly different wardrobe today. That's because it is sweater weather. Yes, it is sweater weather, and I am so grateful for that. That's one thing I'm thankful for. It had, like, I'm here in the. In the Atlanta area. It had gotten hot and kind of like summer, like, again. And don't get me wrong, summer is. Is all well and good during the summertime. It is now, not the summertime. It is the fall time of the year, and we shouldn't have highs in the 80s with humidity, you know, so it feels like it's close to 100. That. That should not be a thing. And I am thankful for the cooler weather that has moved in. So that's one good thing. It's a little thing. But, hey, sometimes it's the little things in life that you have to be grateful for or you'll kind of, you know, go crazy.
So whatever you're thankful for, just take a moment this week to kind of focus on that and express that, because I feel like it's such a big deal when we're talking about the finances today, when we're talking about LGBTQ + community today, when we're talking about the world today. We need to Take stock of the things that are good in life and the things that we can be grateful for and thankful for. And so this Thanksgiving season is coming at a very good time for us to just do that because of all the craziness that's going on out there. Let's inject some positivity into the world. All right.
Let's also get some inspiration for our conversation that we're about to have with our quote of the week.
And now for some financial wisdom. It's time for the quote of the Week.
And this week's quote comes from the late, great Maya Angelou, who was the US Poet Laureate for many, many years, of course, and she said this. Be present in all things and thankful for all things.
Be present in all things and thankful for all things. Very appropriate for this week, of course. And it's. It's funny because sometimes I'll say, stop. I'm just an. I've always been kind of an older person in a younger person's body that I guess the body is catching up to how old I've always been these days. But. But I will often say things like, you know, like sort of quote, unquote, old people sayings like, you gotta laugh to keep from crying. And, you know, I guess, don't cry for spilled milk, that kind of thing. But that sort of goes in that same vein with, you know, being grateful and thankful for all things, being present in all things, and thankful for all things, because, you know, it's a tough thing to do, especially when things are so crazy in the world, to be grateful for literally everything.
But if you take stock of what you have and you look around and see, you know, people who may not have as much as you.
Yeah, there are people who have a lot more than you or I or a lot of other people do. But you can be grateful for the things that you do have and therefore, your ability to help those who are less fortunate as well. And that's another big theme, of course, of this season.
And I just think it's something that, again, putting positivity out there, I think is something that we all really, really need to do.
So that was our quote of the week, and I love it. So we're going to go into some Social Security changes coming up for 2026, and LGBTQ plus retirees a lot of the time tend to rely heavily on Social Security because of a lot of different things. Historic wage gaps, career interruptions. Hello. That has happened to me. I talked about that a lot last week on one of the shows.
Lack of generational wealth as well, you know, I mean, you may live in a family that's been fractured. You may not have that wealth being passed down to you, that generational wealth.
So it's a thing. It could be a reality for you. And even small changes to Social Security can have a big impact.
Are there huge, huge changes coming to Social Security next year in the grand scheme of things? No. But even the small changes you got to pay attention to, because they can have a big impact on you and on your life. And why this matters, especially for LGBTQ plus folks, because members of our community who are older are more likely to be single, are more likely to be, if not single, without adult children to then help support them.
And many people have faced pay disparities due to discrimination.
Lower lifetime earnings, perhaps as a result, smaller benefits as a result. Because Social Security is based on your highest earning years over your career, they take that. And if you have some of those years in there that are very low earnings, then that, of course, brings down that benefit amount that you eventually are eligible for. Medicare cost increases hit harder for LGBTQ plus retirees who may have higher health care expenses, depending on your individual situation. And that's the caveat with everything that I always say on the show, is it all has to do with you and your individual situation, because no two people are exactly alike. A lot of the things that we'll talk about on the show today and every day are applicable to everybody listening. A lot of the things may be a little different for you if your, you know, situation is XYZ versus abc. You know, like, if your situation is just a little bit different from what is the most prevalent thing out there then, and which, of course, is the story of the LGBTQ+ community to begin with, Right? Like, we are different by definition in a lot of ways than the public at large.
So we have to approach our retirement plan and how we plan for Social Security that way as well.
And so, as a registered Social Security analyst, I'm someone who has taken the time to get the education to be able to provide you with that deep dive into your individual situation and see how it fits into the big picture. See how what you are expected to receive from Social Security fits into the big overall picture of your retirement. Again, you go to Take Pride in retirement dot com.
Take Pride in retirement dot com. That's the website. You can schedule a free consultation there. It's free of any cost or any obligation. We talk about Social Security. We can talk about all the things. All right, so let's do that. Let's take a look at everything that you have and what you could have, see how all the pieces fit together. You can also call me 8552-4692-1185-5246-9211. All right, so what are the changes coming up is, you know, I mentioned they're not huge, huge ones or anything. Changes coming up for this year, this next year for Social Security.
Well, something that happens pretty much every year.
It has the potential to happen every year anyway is the cost of living adjustment. The cola.
You'd say, oh, I love a cola. You know, a diet cola, maybe a cola. Zero, perhaps no. COLA is the cost of living adjustment, which does come in handy as well and is probably better for you than any of the chemical filled drinks that we all enjoy.
2.8% cost of living adjustment increase for 2026. It's helpful. It may not keep up with the true cost of inflation, especially rising health care costs. A lot of LGBTQ + older adults experience those higher costs at higher rates because of having to spend more and spend more out of pocket a lot of the time.
So that is something that you need to pay attention to. All right. Medicare premiums could be rising about 10% for you. And that really does reduce your net Social Security benefit. Right? Because more is coming out and, and you are, you know, you've got that increase at 2.8% COLA. But if your Medicare premium rises by 10%, then that just, you know, eats away at that increase.
A new $6,000 senior tax deduction that has been much lauded by some in Washington. It's not tax free. Social Security, don't let anybody say that. That is a, you know, oh, Social Security taxes are totally gone now. And then you are very surprised come or hopefully before when you do your taxes, they're like, wait a minute, Social Security taxes. I thought those were gone. No, they are not gone. But there is a new senior tax deduction meant to offset a lot of those. If you are 65 and over. Now, if you've claimed Social Security early, if you've claimed it at first, eligibility at 62 or any time before the age of 65, you don't get to take advantage of that. But that $6,000 senior tax deduction may help people in the LGBTQ+ community who are single who file alone, since single households don't get the tax advantages that married heterosexual couples historically enjoyed. So that can help you. But of course, it's, it's for everybody. That $6,000 deduction 12,000 for married couples when you're both over 65.
So, you know, those are kind of, in a nutshell, the biggest changes here. And again, it's nothing like super earth shattering, but it bears repeating. To quote Bianca Del Rio, it bears repeating. And it also means that you've got to pay attention to how all of these different aspects affect something else. Like I was saying, there's sort of the correlation between, oh, the cost of living adjustment is going up by 2.8%, but Medicare premiums expected to rise by about 10% as well. So how does that offset. How does that affect your budget every month, especially if you're relying primarily on Social Security, which I hope is not the case. I hope you've got other sources of income and your Social Security is just the cherry on top. If you are not there yet, that's a reason to talk to me because I would love to get you there.
And, you know, I can. I can say with a lot of certainty for most people that I speak with, that is very, very possible.
Again, everybody's situation is different, but you could be in a place where Social Security is the extra. It's the cherry on top. It's not the thing that you're living on and paying your bills on each and every month. You can get a guaranteed income stream that comes from elsewhere. Right?
And so now is a particularly important time for LGBTQ + retirees and couples to reassess things like survivor benefits, spousal and ex spousal benefits, health care planning, since the changes in income thresholds and Medicare costs may affect you differently.
So if you want a personalized look at how all of these changes can affect you and your household, LGBTQ plus or not, let's talk book that free consultation. It's a takeprideinretirement.com you can book it there directly or you can give me a call. 855-246-9211.
And another question that people face, and it's a big one, is, hey, will Social Security always be there?
LGBTQ + adults often report lower trust in government systems due to our lived experience. Right. I mean, it wasn't even legal for us to marry the person that we wanted to marry for forever until 2015, until about 10 years ago.
And then people have situations like where they've lost their job and had no protections against that or were denied benefits in earlier decades. So maybe, you know, planning beyond Social Security even more important for our community. And this is why I emphasize that fact. A lot of make Social Security the Cherry on top, not the thing that you're counting on. And, you know, we see report after report that in less than 10 years, the Social Security trust fund, the Old Agers Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust fund, easy for me to say, is going to run out of money. That doesn't mean that payments are going away. That means that payments would need to be reduced because you still have workers who are in the system right now paying into the system. But those would then, instead of going into the trust fund or whatever to be paying out future benefits, they would just be paying current benefits instead of having this backup funding coming from the trust fund.
And so unless something is done, benefits will have to be cut by, you know, 2020. Some odd percent is, you know, one of the latest analyses that I've seen.
And so LGBTQ plus singles disproportionately rely on Social Security as their primary income.
And this is anecdotally speaking, from my own personal experience and, and from people that I have known and seen in my life.
A lot of LGBTQ plus couples maybe financially disadvantaged, especially going back several years, like say before marriage equality, say 2015, and that impacts those lifetime benefit credits. Some transgender adults have documentation changes and challenges because of those changes that affect Social Security administration records.
And so if you, you know, knowing all that, don't necessarily trust that Social Security is going to be something that's going to be there forever. A couple of things that you need to do. One, set clear goals for the retirement lifestyle that affects you and reflects your chosen family, your chosen support system.
Build independent savings and investments, and I can help you with that. To reduce reliance on government benefits that may shift, may have to be reduced.
Eliminate debt strategically, since LGBTQ + adults can carry higher average credit card balances a lot of the time, eliminate that debt so that you're not under that big pile of debt and you can have money to, to live on.
Right? You're not just trying to make it. You're thriving every month. You're not just surviving and plan income streams beyond Social Security. That's the biggie here. I want you to have multiple income streams, and that's possible. You can use things like annuities to basically a personal pension to create an income stream. Maybe you can use some, some sort of bond portfolio.
We'll take a look at that and see if that makes sense for you.
A lot of times annuities might make more sense because they've been performing better than bonds and they're still, they still have some, you know, a lot of guarantees associated with them. So we can talk about that and see how, which one might be better for you and which might fit with you in your portfolio, in your lifestyle, in your dream for retirement so that you can have that retirement that you can take pride in. So don't build your retirement on an uncertain foundation, right? Don't build it on sand. Build it on, on solid rock, on bedrock, right? Plan the retirement that you want, that, that you see as reflective of the things that are, you know, your values, your timeline, your resilience in life.
Because we come from a community that is so super resilient.
And if you're worried about Social Security not being there, at least at full strength in the future, you're definitely not alone in that.
And you don't have to plan alone. What I want you to do is schedule that complimentary consultation.
Go to takeprideinretirement.com TakePrideInRetirement.com is once again the website. Or call 8552-4692-1185-5246-9211. All right, quickie here before we go.
And that Thanksgiving meal costs this year, it's, it's kind of a weird mixed bag because you look at the retail, on the retail side, oh, Thanksgiving meal costs are down.
Yes.
It's because a lot of retailers are running sales to entice customers, to attract customers during this time. And they're sort of eating up some, some of their own costs, you know, maybe cutting some of their own profits there wholesale prices. So the prices that a lot of these retailers, grocery store chains, etcetera Will pay for the actual thing.
So for the turkey and the dressing or whatever, stuffing, whatever you might have, wherever you are. I'm not going to get into the whole dressing versus stuffing debates because that would be like a three hour show. But I don't want to put you through that. But all the side dishes and all of the things and the cranberry sauce, I will say the cranberry sauce debate on my end anyway. It's got to be the cranberry sauce that is, you know, basically jelly and has the lines, the can lines in it. You know, that's just, that's just me. My preference is what I've always liked.
If it's not that, it's not quote unquote, real cranberry sauce in my particular view. Anyway, that probably tells you a lot about me. But. So those wholesale prices are up. So the prices that the retailers overall are paying on, on from their suppliers to get Those items on the shelves, those are up.
But a lot of the different prices overall, especially for turkeys like turkey costs are down quite a bit this year, I believe. This is from the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Turkey prices are down about 16% last year, last year versus this year, this year versus last year, I should say so this year 16% cheaper on average than last year at this time.
$21.50 on average for a turkey. That's about a $34 a pound, they say. And so that's down more than 16% on the retail side.
But again, those wholesale prices are higher and many stores are really running deals to drive retail prices lower. So the actual price that you are paying for those different things has gone down due to a lot of those specials that are out there.
And I mean, you know, not everything is down, of course. The turkey price of a turkey is down.
So is, you know, cubed stuffing mix is down about 9% they say. Again, this is all from the American Farm Bureau Federation.
A half pint of whipping cream though is up about 3.2%. Frozen peas up 17%. 30 ounce can of pumpkin pie mix is up very, very slightly, just a tenth of a percent.
Sweet potatoes up 37%.
A veggie tray up 61%. So a lot of those different costs of maybe the smaller, like the sides and all that kind of stuff are up and in some cases way up, but kind of the big centerpiece of the table is down and especially down on the wholesale side. So kind of a mixed bag. This holiday season, whatever the deal is for you, this holiday, wherever you celebrate, however you celebrate with whomever you celebrate, I hope that you have the happiest of Thanksgivings.
Eat all of the things that you want to eat, just don't overdo it and like wind up, you know, passing out on the couch with a turkey leg in your hand or something like that just is just not a good look. But whatever you want to do and whatever you do this holiday, I hope that you do it and live it to its fullest. And I just really hope that you have just the best Thanksgiving.
No second show this week, but I will see you again next week for another edition of Take Pride in Retirement. Again, if you have questions, if you have some things that maybe today's show has brought up, about Social Security, about budgeting, about Medicare, long term care, long term income, lifetime income, Now's the perfect time to sit down with a professional, with an advisor who acts in a fiduciary capacity, understanding the unique financial realities of LGBTQ retirees and pre retirees.
Just give me a call 855-246-9211 or visit takeprideinretirement.com well, that's going to do it for this edition of the show. It has flown by, but I appreciate you being a part of it and as always, take pride in yourself and take care of each other. I'll see you next time.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: Thanks for listening. To Take Pride in Retirement Members of the LGBTQ community deserve to work with a fiduciary financial advisor who puts their needs first. To schedule a free, no obligation consultation with Matt McClure and the team at Active Wealth Management, call 855-246-9211 or go online to Take Pride in Retirement Investment Advisory Services offered through Brookstone Capital Management, llc, bcm. A registered investment advisor, BCM and Active Wealth Management, Inc. Are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents. Matt McClure and active wealth Management are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other government agency.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Registered investment advisors and investment advisor representatives act as fiduciaries for all of our investment management clients. We have an obligation to act in the best interest our clients and to make full disclosures of any conflicts of interest. Please refer to our firm brochure the ADV2A, item 4 for additional information. Any comments regarding safe and secure investments and guaranteed income streams refer only to fixed insurance products.
[00:26:05] Speaker C: They do not in any way refer.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: To investment advisory products. Rates and guarantees provided by insurance products and annuities are subject to the financial strength of the issuing insurance company, not guaranteed by any bank or the fdic.
