Mary Jo Werner, JD, CPA, CFF–Wipfli: Talking Taxes

How much has changed during your life? Will it keep on changing? Do those changes concern you? How can you add certainty to your life? It's like knowing you have a winning lottery ticket.  If you owned that ticket and you knew it was going to payout in the future, how might that change how you live your life today?

Have you ever found yourself needing to clear space but having no idea where to even begin? Perhaps you were named in a departed loved one's will to clear the estate, or you need some guidance preparing for a home renovation, or maybe you're just overwhelmed by clutter. Mark speaks with Sara Washburn of Peace by Piece Professional Organizing to discuss the purpose of her organization and what services are offered. 0:00 Intro 2:41 How "Peace by Piece" Came to Be 8:00 DIY Action Plans and Coaching 12:05 Home Decluttering and Organization 18:25 A Kind Request 19:24 Estate Clearing 24:24 Renovation Preparation 26:40 What Motivates Sara? 29:26 Cause for Tears 32:50 Hoarding 38:40 Investments Don't Hug 39:12 Hoarding (cont'd) 46:19 Sara's Army Lesson 48:17 The One Thing 52:55 Conclusion To contact Sara, or for more info on her services, please visit: https://peacebypiecewi.com/

When I told the social media world that I would be dropping a video and podcast soon with Chris Lezpona as my guest, I was surprised by the huge reaction I received. Chris has weathered many storms in his life, the biggest being a brain tumor and the following surgery to remove it over a decade ago and then the resulting handicaps he has overcome since. To know Chris is to know someone who causes you to see not his handicaps, but instead the handicaps in yourself, the handicaps that we all have, those that can't be seen with the naked eye. Chris may share with you what he may believe are his personal limitations, but you won't see them. Instead, you may wonder instead, what your own limitations are, that you have set upon yourself. If I ever need a positive boost in my life, I know where to find it. Its embodied in a man who works at a busy Kwik Trip convenience store down the street from our office. This spectacular young man's name is Chris Lezpona. 0:00 Introduction 1:32 Who is Chris Lezpona? 5:42 Life Changing Diagnosis 9:10 A Kind Request 10:08 Navigating Life with a New Perspective 18:22 Life is Hard 19:50 The Good You See and Try to Be 23:49 Investments Don't Hug 24:20 God Bless Moms 26:21 Chris's Tattoo 29:02 Rules to Live By 31:53 Kwik Trip 33:03 Conclusion

We are all bombarded with so much “stuff” that fills our basket of ‘to-dos’ each day.  How is an overwhelmed person supposed to conquer the pile of life’s stuff that blocks our path to success and happiness.  Mark Bertrang revisits Gary Keller’s book – The One Thing.  He explains how he prioritizes what needs to be accomplished first, from each list of to-dos in his life. 0:00 Intro 1:10 A Day in the Life of Mark 3:49 What is "The One Thing"? 5:44 Conclusion

How do you begin your day?  Upbeat or downtrodden?  We're told that you can choose your outlook.  If that's true, how should you begin your day? Mark Bertrang, author of "Investments Don't Hug" provides his simple formula to beginning and staying positive each day. 00:00    Intro 00:35    Why beginning your day with the News is a bad idea 02:33    Mark Bertrang’s morning routine 05:41    Stay Informed on world events, but tread carefully 06:46    How to change and maintain your ‘default’ attitude 09:11    What do you owe yourself and others? 10:55    Your Future Self - Who do you want to be? 14:01    Conclusion

0:00 – Intro 3:10 – Why “Truth Concepts”? 6:42 – Sensationalized News and Number Panic 19:00 – Overcoming the Fear of Utilizing Your Own Money 21:27 – Todd’s Passion for Financial Services 25:18 – Using Strategy to Uncover Truths 32:49 – Investments Don’t Hug 33:24 – Insuring Your Most Valuable Asset: You! 41:08 – Finding Peace of Mind 44:52 – The Safety in Whole Life Insurance 50:46 – Benefits of Truth Concepts Financial Software 57:52 – Conclusion Purpose with Mark Bertrang, Ep. #143 "Math tells the truth" Guest: Todd Langford, Truth Concepts Todd Langford is a believer in the truth.  Many financial products sold in today's world revolve around gimmicks or hide behind words that seem less than the total truth.  As the creator of the Truth Concepts™ software platform, Todd Langford spends his waking hours questioning the numbers and concepts used by the financial industry in communicating the reality of math.  We don't live in a world where all of our decisions are made purely by math, but we do live in a world where math can determine our destiny.  Forget “conventional wisdom” or what the latest financial magazine or infomercial might be pushing. Truth Concepts™ pulls back the curtain and shows us the reality of the math. It can compare financial strategies, to consult and answer specific financial questions, or to educate your about financial principles such as opportunity costs and the impact of taxes and fees. Truth Concepts™ is desktop software program that analyzes the impact of various financial choices. It includes over 20 multi-faceted functions – a suite of 16 calculators and additional tools and tables of historical information (such as tax rates). It lets you evaluate the effectiveness of limitless financial options.

Yesterday, I was at our local Office Depot. I needed to pick up some more spiral binders. I write each and every morning, and I believe that journaling is an important way to focus your thoughts for the day. If that is not something that you are doing now, I would highly recommend it. If you want to center yourself and have clarity, I suggest that you don’t turn on the news or listen to podcasts. Instead, enjoy some silence in your day. During that silence, grab a pen, some sheets of paper, and begin writing. I had somebody recently ask me at a national conference how it is that I do my journaling. He wanted to know specifically how I start writing about something.  I told him I usually begin with one sentence or sometimes just one word. If I’m upset about something, I will just write “I had a crappy day yesterday”. Then, I just write what went on yesterday. Usually, by the time I get to the end of my journaling, I solve the problem that was irritating me, and I come out on the other side of my brooding into sunshine and positivity. I might also write down something like “I am so thankful today because…”. Then I write about that. The goal is not just to fill the page with words. You may find that it is actually pretty easy to fill a page or 2 or 3. For me, journaling oftentimes becomes a prayer., and at the very end, I simply write “amen”. So, while I was at Office Depot picking up some more journaling supplies, I took a stroll around the rows of merchandise to see if there was anything that intrigued me, and I came across sheets of emoji stickers. I thought these were really cool. I can use these little dimples of emojis and put them on thank you notes that I write. I write thank you notes every single day because I believe that gratitude is an important part of what our life needs. How many times during the course of the day do you say thank you? If you don’t say it often, why not? Are there no people in your life?  Even with people that you come across each and every day like the checkout person at your local grocery store, when was the last time that you paused, looked into their eyes, and said “thank you” instead of just inserting your card and walking away? When our children were young, we repeated again and again to our children. We would ask “What do you say?” They would know that the correct response was either “please”, or “thank you”. Reignite that voice in your mind. If you can remember that voice from your mother and father, make today the day that you begin to say “please” and “thank you” again. If I was writing a thank you note to you today for doing this, I would take one of these little emojis stickers and place it on that note to show my appreciation for what you have decided to do today for others.

What are the odds that as you are driving the roadways of Wisconsin that your life will end this year? Maybe the better question is: how many people are negatively Affected by accidents in the state of Wisconsin? I was discussing this with the team one morning. There are often signs with blinking lights placed next to highways that will say how many people have been killed on Wisconsin roadways during the course of the year. The most recent data from Wisconsin’s DOT website was from 2020, and the total number of people that were killed was 593, which is actually a lower number than usual because people were not traveling as much during the pandemic, but it was still 593 people that died that year. That’s just the people that didn’t walk away from an accident. Instead, they were taken away by hearse. What about the people that were taken away by ambulance? How many people were injured? These numbers are scarier. In 2020, 32,373 people were injured in automobile accidents in Wisconsin. The number of serious injuries, these are people whose lives have been forever changed, was 3,186. The total number of crashes in our state back in 2020 was 115,694. The reason I’m discussing this is because life is risky no matter what we do, and I am always very cautious when I’m out on the roadway. I drive very, very cautiously, making sure that I look both ways, and that I stay with-in the speed limit. However, there are people out there that just appear crazy to me (in all the decisions they make), and just because you are playing it safe, it does not mean that they are. Nobody gets into a car thinking that this may be the day that they die. Nobody thinks today’s the day they might get a serious injury that will leave them disabled. They don’t think that this year might not turn out how they expected. They don’t expect to become disabled for the long run or permanently. They don’t expect to maybe lose their job because of it. Have you taken steps to ensure that 100% of your income is fully guaranteed, no matter what happens in your life? No matter your age, it is the ability to produce an income source that allows us to live the life that we want to live. I realize that even if you do have that 100% coverage you might still say that if that were to happen, what’s the point, your life would be crap. Personally, I would rather have a crappy life and money than having a crappy life and not have money. Are you 100% able to say today that no matter what happens in your life medically: an accident, a disability, and/or death, that you are covered? Are you sure? It's kind of a sick joke you hear that “every single day, people are just dying to get into the obituary column of their local paper”. Make sure you are 100% covered today. There is no reason to wait on any of this. It’s a gift to yourself to make sure this is all setup now. Additionally, it's a gift to your family, to your loved ones. If I'm making a point to you today, then act on it. Feelings will not get you anywhere; hope only gets you so far. It’s taking action today that will actually make a difference in your life. Do not become a statistic.

In my first career, decades ago, I worked as an announcer at a radio station in a small, rural town. One of my jobs included doing the emergency broadcast testing on a monthly basis. I can still remember what I needed to say during the test: “The attention signal that you just heard, had it been an actual emergency, would have been followed by official news or instructions. Remember, this is only a test.” Let’s talk about the test of income. Someone recently asked us: “What is an immediate annuity?” You will often hear financial professionals talk about annuities. The annuities that they are usually referring to are called an accumulation annuity. Those are annuities where you are accumulating money inside the annuities. That could be an equity index or index annuity, a fixed-interest annuity, or a variable annuity. There are many different options available when a person is putting money into an annuity. What I am referring to is not the accumulation of money within an annuity. What I’m talking about is the payout of an annuity. I actually went to my bookcase today and looked in The American Heritage Dictionary. It gave a pretty good definition of what an annuity is: “1. The annual payment of an allowance or income.” Think of it as your kids receiving an allowance; you are receiving an allowance of income. “2. The right to receive this payment or the obligation to make this payment.” Typically, a person or a company (usually an insurance company) is obligated to pay you on a regular basis. “3. An investment on which a person receives fixed payments for a lifetime or a specified number of years.” You should be very familiar with that structure of an immediate annuity. If you are a lottery winner, you receive a choice of receiving either a lump sum or payments throughout a certain period of time. That is an immediate annuity. If you have a pension program with our local brewery in town, Trane, or with the Wisconsin Trust Fund because you were a teacher or a municipal employee, that is nothing more than an immediate annuity. In fact, you can basically say an immediate annuity is often analogous or the same thing as a pension. Payments from immediate annuities are quite unique. It can be based on the rate of return the annuity can receive from the investments put inside the annuity. It can be based on if you are a man or a woman. Men typically have shorter lives than women. Annuity payments to a woman are usually smaller because she is expected to live for a longer period of time or have a guaranteed payment for a longer period of time as compared to most men. Age also can play into it as well. Here is a great example: Social Security. We know the longer that we wait to receive the payout from the government for Social Security, the higher the payment will be. Some people elect to retire early thinking they’ll get more money than if they take the money later. However, everything else being equal, it is exactly the same amount of money as the person who waits and receives a higher payment. If they have the same life expectancy as someone who is younger and takes the lesser payment, it mathematically works out to be exactly the same. You should make a decision based on things like what your health is like at that time. The longer you live with any pension, Social Security, or immediate annuity, the better off you would be. Then, based on the issuing company and the stability of the company, you should be able to have a payment with a lifetime immediate annuity that you cannot outlive. What you will typically find is a person in their 60s or 70s will begin having conversations around immediate annuities. The older a person is the more money they would receive on a monthly basis. The important thing to realize is that everyone’s situation is unique. Everyone’s health is unique to them. The amount of money that they have is unique to them. When you are trying to decide if you should use an immediate annuity, you must remember that you are giving up the accessibility of money. You are trading that accessibility and purchasing an income, potentially guaranteed, for your entire lifetime.  If you have some specific questions about annuities or in this case immediate annuities, it’s important that you go slow. Take your time and see all the possible formulas that can affect your financial situation. If you have some additional questions regarding this or anything else, please reach out to our team. “Annuity.” The American Heritage Dictionary, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA, 1991, p. 112.

What does it mean to be a CEO, a Chief Executive Officer? Most people think about a business CEO, but what does it mean to be the CEO of your family’s financial future?  I got to thinking about this last week: it was the end of the quarter and I picked up a report of our corporation for the first three months of this year from my accountant.  This gives me information that I need to figure out how we are doing as a company, and many of the same expenses that we take care of here at our office are the same expenses that you might take care of on the home front. First item on my report is revenue. If we’re talking about the home front, that is income. Then there are expenses. Business expenses could be things like utilities, telephone, freight and postage, bank charges, advertising and promotions, repairs and maintenance, educational expenses, Social Security taxes, state taxes, federal taxes, depreciation, rent or mortgage, legal and accounting expenses, licenses, dues, subscriptions, and travel expenses. Every, single quarter, I get a breakdown on the money that is going in (revenue), and the money going out (expenses). Businesses use these reports or something similar to determine if they are a profitable business. That same reasoning should go hand-in-hand when you are your family’s CEO. A lot of people get frustrated being in this position because they feel like they are not keeping up with their expenses. One of the reasons that they aren’t keeping up is because they are not getting a quarterly report like I do. They are not tracking what goes and what goes out. You have to take responsibility when you are the family CEO. We do this at the office by going through the checkbook on a monthly basis. Most of our expenses are put through a company credit card because it’s more cost efficient. We get some additional points that we can accumulate along the way. Instead of writing out many, many checks, we just write out one check for the list of multiple expenses to the credit card company at the end of the month. We keep track of all of the receipts, and then we share those expenses with our accountant. We make sure to keep track of everything and pay off that credit card monthly, just like you should if you have a personal credit card. When my spouse and I first got married, we realized that we really did not have our budget under control. We knew what our income was, but we really didn’t have an understanding of our outgoing expenses. Starting back in 1981, we started to fill out a Dome home budget book, which you can still get at Home Depot or online. A lot of people can do all this on a phone app or excel sheet now. However, if you get the book and have to physically write everything out, it really makes the expenses that much more painful. This may be a bit old-school, but a home budget book will have many of the same things: food, clothing, laundry, rent, mortgage, electricity, gas, telephone, heating, auto, insurance, loans, education, entertainment, personal care, gifts, contributions, interest, taxes, childcare, and additional miscellaneous items. What I like about this particular booklet is that you complete each one of these areas, and then you also fill everything out on a day-to-day basis so you can see exactly where the money is going. You can see what it looks like at the end of the month. This is the recommendation that I make to people who have never done a budget before: they always think they need to come up with a budget to figure out what they should be spending, I actually believe that it’s best to do several months of what I referred to as “reverse budgeting”. You just keep track of what your expenses actually are for at least a few months and write it all down. Back in the 1980s, we had a particular goal that we wanted to accomplish, and it required us having an understanding of our budget. By doing reverse budgeting, we kept track of what our expenses were as they occurred, day-to-day. It only took a month or two for us to look back into the budget book and realize a problem. We realized we were spending way too much money on going out to eat, then what our income would really allow. Until we actually saw the number, we couldn’t make the adjustment in our lives because we couldn’t see how big of a problem it was. Treat your family as if it were a business because it is a business. Let's say your last name is Smith. Your family is now the Smith Corporation, and you are the CEO. Run it like a corporation. Look at the income. Look at the expenses going out. If your business is not making or saving between 15-20% of your income that means that there needs to be some adjustments in your lifestyle. It’s just like going to my accountant on a quarterly basis and reviewing my business checkbook every month. It’s something that you need to do on a monthly basis as well. You need to know and understand your numbers.