Red Flag Warning - Jill on Money with Jill Schlesinger

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Jill on Money with Jill Schlesinger
Episode: Red Flag Warning
Date: November 13, 2025
Host: Jill Schlesinger, CFP®

Overview

In this episode, Jill Schlesinger addresses a variety of listener questions focused on crucial year-end financial decisions. Topics include warning signs when selecting a financial planner, how conservative investors should handle market volatility, tax implications of retirement account withdrawals, the nuances of pension planning, and the importance of maintaining thoughtful, respectful financial conversations. Jill’s advice is both practical and jargon-free, providing clear guidance and reassurance in what can often be overwhelming territory.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Red Flags When Choosing a Financial Planner

[03:18 – 08:55]

Listener Scenario: Tammy, age 63, and her husband (60), are considering whether to hire a financial advisor that handled a relative's funds, particularly as a potential inheritance might soon be involved.
- Tammy is the primary money manager; her husband is less engaged.
- The prospective advisor charges a 1.5% AUM fee plus high mutual fund fees.
- The advisor purportedly said they could easily retire without knowing any spending needs.
Jill’s Take:
- Jill cautions strongly against hiring this advisor, especially given Tammy’s solid track record as a DIY investor and the high cost of the proposed relationship.
- Points out that the advisor's promise that they could retire—without any knowledge of their spending—was a "red flag" itself.
- Urges careful evaluation before transferring assets simply out of convenience or familiarity.
- On paying advisory fees:
  
  “Are you really interested in plunking over 15 grand just for a year? Not just now, but every year? This seems a little bit crazy to me. So I think the warning that you’re feeling is basically, well, why would I hire this person?” — Jill [05:57]
- Suggests staying the course, especially since Tammy’s current conservative, low-cost approach has weathered market downturns well.

2. Retirement Planning and Pensions—"Am I Missing Anything?"

[09:00 – 11:06]

Listener Scenario: Calvin, 58, educator and military veteran, asks for a financial checkup.
- Three and a half years from retirement, expects a $5,000/month pension, $4,000/month military pension.
- Wife, younger by four years, also has a robust pension and significant retirement savings.
- No debt; home nearly paid off; plans a dream car purchase post-retirement.
- Saving $60,000/year now, plans to continue.
Jill’s Verdict:
- Calvin is in excellent financial health.
  
  “Are you crazy? You’re in great shape. You literally spend no money. And your full pension in three and a half years is going to be covering most of your expenses, not to mention the military pension.” — Jill [09:44]
- Advises no change; affirms that their plan is optimal.

3. Handling Market Corrections and Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs)

[11:07 – 12:30]

Listener Scenario: Steven asks about moving three to four years’ worth of RMDs to cash or money market, as a buffer against market downturns.
Jill’s Analysis:
- Two years’ worth of RMDs in cash may be sufficient unless someone is especially risk-averse or simply feels more secure with more liquidity.
  
  “If you have tons of money and it just makes you feel better, then that’s okay too, I guess.” — Jill [12:20]
- Both Jill and co-host Mark agree that more than two or three years is generally unnecessary.

4. Using Retirement Savings to Pay Off Debt

[12:31 – 13:32]

Listener Scenario: Mike, a 60-year-old federal worker, took $45,000 from his Thrift Savings Plan to pay off credit card debt; asks about tax implications.
Jill’s Thoughts:
- Not an ideal habitual practice but understandable in specific situations.
  - The outcome depends on current year’s total income/tax situation.
  “First of all, don’t ask me this after the fact. It’s already done....I like the idea of using money that is available to pay down credit card debt, but I don’t want to get in the habit of doing this.” — Jill [12:36]
- Withholding may or may not fully cover taxes owed.

5. Best Source for Retirement Withdrawals as a Couple

[13:33 – 14:23]

Listener Scenario: Jan (71) and wife (70) have $1.5M in retirement savings, considering how to balance withdrawals between their accounts as wife’s account is being depleted faster.
Jill Recommends:
- Draw from the older spouse’s account first, since their RMDs will be larger.
- Otherwise, it makes little practical difference, as long as total needs are met.

6. Celebrating Listener Appreciation and Positive Podcasting

[14:24 – 15:02]

Listener Email: Stephen expresses gratitude for the show’s respectful tone and focus on practical advice, contrasting it with sensationalist financial media.

“You are a beacon of positivity in a sea of unnecessary drama.” — Stephen [14:40, listener email]
Jill’s Response:
- Grateful for the positive feedback; affirms the show’s commitment to removing “the mystery out of your financial lives.”
- Assures listeners that feedback is valued, and any constructive criticism is welcomed.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Red Flag on Advisors:

“The warning that you’re feeling is basically, well, why would I hire this person?…You’ve been doing such a good job.” — Jill [05:53]
On Conservative Investing:

“We haven’t lost huge amounts when the markets crashed over the last 20 years.” — Tammy [04:43, listener email; paraphrased by Jill]
When You’re Already Doing Well:

“You’re in great shape, man. I wouldn’t do a thing different.” — Jill [10:00]
On Cash vs. Investment for RMDs:

“If you have tons of money and it just makes you feel better, then that’s okay too, I guess.” — Jill [12:20]
Listener Praise:

“Your pods have become a staple of my personal finance diet... You are a beacon of positivity in a sea of unnecessary drama.” — Stephen [14:40, email read aloud]

Important Segments and Timestamps

Red flags with financial advisors: [03:18 – 08:55]
Retirement check-in for pensions and savings: [09:00 – 11:06]
Cash vs. market for RMD strategy: [11:07 – 12:30]
Using retirement funds for debt payoff: [12:31 – 13:32]
How to balance withdrawals between spouses: [13:33 – 14:23]
Listener appreciation and show values: [14:24 – 15:02]

Tone & Language

Throughout the episode, Jill maintains a conversational, encouraging, and frank tone. She avoids jargon, explains reasoning clearly, and treats all listener questions with respect—even when delivering tough love or common-sense advice.

Summary for New Listeners

This episode is an excellent snapshot of Jill Schlesinger’s accessible, no-nonsense approach to financial planning. She calls out “red flags” from both advisors and products, reassures listeners when they’re on the right track, and never misses a chance to empower the audience with straightforward, non-judgmental financial guidance. Listeners receive both practical information and a healthy dose of reassurance that “change your work, change your wealth, change your life” is within reach, no matter where they start.

Transcript

A (0:00)

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Get more with Northwest registered agent@www.northwestregisteredagent.com j welcome to the Jill on Money Show. It's Thursday, November 13th and we are here answering your financial questions. So many questions we've been fielding about the end of the year, about market crashes, about what to do. Hey you know what? Some of these themes could converge next week when we host our Jill on Money live webinar. Yeah, that is on Wednesday, November 19th. We're gonna be talking about year end tax and financial planning. So many people are reluctant to do things right now. Oh, I don't want to pay taxes. Maybe you should. Maybe you can fund charitable organizations. Maybe there's a way to get your allocation back in line without having a humongous tax event. But you will only know that if you are a member of this subscription service called Jill on Money Live. And you join us next week, Wednesday, November 19th. We're doing year end tax and financial planning. We've got a certified financial planner joining us to answer your questions live. Real time questions answered. So great. Her name is Jana Davis. She's been on the show before. She's really adept at firing off the answers and the information that you need to get where you want to go. So you've got to join us by just going to the website jillonmoney.com and go to that link Jill on Money Live. 45 bucks for the next 12 months will get you four webinars, the back catalog of those webinars, bonus audio and video content again, all for $45 for the next 12 months. So check it out. Okay, now it's time to do some emails. We've got a bunch that are piling up here towards the end of the year. So, you know, we, we got to get to this. Okay, so this is an interesting question. This is from Tammy. The subject is red flags. Two questions. Can we retire in two and a half years is number one. And should we run screaming from a potential financial planner? Because I've got serious qualms. So let's find out about Tammy. She's 63, husband is 60. Right now, Tammy's a do it yourselfer. She said, my husband is not remotely interested in looking at their financial life. Recently, a family member passed away and their funds were handled by a financial planning firm. There is a possible inheritance in the future with monies this company handles. So my husband believes they did well for the family and it would be easier if they just handled our money. Plus, they told him he could retire without a problem. And they did not know our spending needs at the time. So of course he's on board. All right, here's the details. They've got about 29 grand in I bonds. They've got just over a half a million dollars in pre tax, 401, 60 in Roth retirement accounts, another 30 in Roth IRAs, 73 in traditional IRAs. They've got a whole slug of money in cash, man. Half a million dollars. And Tammy says we're obviously pretty conservative and I've put our retirement funds into basically a, I think generally, I would call it a balanced portfolio, low cost funds. We haven't lost huge amounts when the markets crashed over the last 20 years. The new company has a charge of 1 1/2% of the assets under management in addition to the fees associated with the following funds. Okay, I'm not even going to read all These fees because they are funds that have high fees. They're actively managed funds with high fees. Here's the real question. You've given great advice in the past. I'm just trying to figure out whether my misgivings come from not knowing enough or whether I should really be questioning more. Please help. Number one, your husband is not. Should basically not. You know, if he's not interested in the financial part of this and you've been running your money and you've been doing such a good job, I don't really see why you would Pay this person 1.5% of assets under management. I mean, it's all well and good that he got the answer. He wanted to be clear, you've got a lot of money and is your husband that interested in like plunking over 15 grand just for a year? Not just now, but every year? This seems a little bit crazy to me. So I think the warning that you're feeling is basically, well, why would I hire this person? And it's not hard to transfer assets. You give them the name of your account and boom, the money ends up there. So, I mean, if you want a full time financial planner, and that's something that's important to you as well as money management, that's something different. But it sounds to me like you're fine. You're just fine. The only other question that they had, she said, we will need to do COBRA or the Affordable Care act for a couple of years. For me, that'll be a couple thousand dollars. Okay, so you'll do that. They're debt free. They're going to sell their vacation home to add funds to retirement. This seems like a good game plan. I don't see why you would actually. I would not pay the fee just because the people were using the money. The money managers as listed. I just, I didn't mention the name of the firm. You don't need to do that, but I don't think you should. All right, here we go. Question from Calvin, which is, I'm three and a half years out from retirement. I'm 58 years old. I'm an educator. I get my full pension in those three and a half years. It'll be $5,000 a month. And I also have a military pension. $4,000 a month. And I plan to go back to work in another area. No debt. My wife has a pension. She's four years younger. She's got 400 grand in a 403 as well as a 457 in a Roth account. I've maxed out all these accounts. I'm saving $60,000 this school year and I plan to do this for the next few years. I spend around $5,000 a month. My home will be paid off before I retired. No small children. I do plan to buy my dream car when my house is paid off. Am I missing anything? Are you crazy? You're in great shape. You literally spend no money. And your full pension in three and a half years is going to be covering most of your expenses, not to mention the military pension. So you're in great shape, man. I wouldn't do a thing different. I'm not even so sure that, like, you have to worry too much about anything else that's going on. I mean, you're in great shape. All right, here's one of these questions. I love market correction. Steven says with all the talk about an upcoming market correction, how would you feel about someone moving three to four years worth of required minimum distributions to a savings account within their registered product and then withdrawing the acquired money from there? In the case of a correction, I think that what you're talking about is like you move three to four years of RMDs into money market. I mean, I don't know, maybe two years. I don't know about three to four years. I'd need to know more information. And maybe if you're really worried, if the market were to correct, maybe that would be a time to do some conversions. But I don't know if you have other money, but I don't know, I get the sense that two years would be a little bit would be like as much as I would think. What about you, Mark? You think more than two years for RMDs within like putting basically say, let's do four years of RMDs and stick it in the money market in the account. I mean, I get the logic. You know, it's kind of like us telling people to have cash on hand to be able to weather the downturn. But three years, absolute most, I don't think I'd go beyond that. Yeah, it seems like that's a lot. I mean, listen, if you have tons of money and it just makes you feel better, then that's okay too, I guess. You know, that's the other thing. Mike is 60 and he's been a federal worker for more than 23 years. 23 years, and he took about 45 grand from his thrift savings plan to pay off a significant credit card debt. Was this a bad decision? First of all, don't ask me this after the fact. It's already done. He paid withholding as part of the withdrawal. Will I still owe a large tax bill for 20, 25 on the withdrawal. I mean, it's not the worst thing in the world. I mean, if you are a federal employee and you've got the money in there and you, you know, I like the idea of using money that is available to pay down credit card debt, but I don't want to get in the habit of doing this. And I don't know how that credit card debt was actually created and what happened. And you know, so it's not a terrible idea. The withholding part really depends on what happened this tax year. We don't know that yet. Okay. This is From Jan, who's 71, his wife is 70. And he says, I've got a million and a half a million. So he's got a million and a half dollars in retirement accounts. And he says if we withdraw 4% to supplement Social Security, we end up at $9,000 net monthly. The withdrawals coming from my wife's half a million dollar account resulting in my account gaining and her account balance declining. We are not too concerned. We're married 50 years. Shared nest egg gaining each year. Should we start shifting withdrawals to my account? Well, the only reason to shift to your account is that you have more money and the required minimum distributions are going to be bigger for yours. So I mean, I would go to the who's older first. That's how I would do it. And there's no problem there. And I think otherwise if you cover it. That's all good. Okay, you ready for this, Mark? Here is the subject. This is not a mean email, Jill. You guys know I'm so thin skinned. Dear Jill and Mark, just a quick note to let you know how much I value your retirement planning and financial literacy focused content across multiple platforms. Your pods have become a staple of my personal finance diet. And the fact that you treat each caller with dignity and respect, plus no judgment, is especially gratifying, particularly when listener exploitation by hosts for the sake of views clicks is the norm. You are a beacon of positivity in a sea of unnecessary drama. Kudos to you both. P.S. to Jill. The husband and I are enjoying hunting wives too. Though having spent very little time in Texas, we're both constantly trying to separate the good storytelling from the real life stereotypes. I guess that's one of the reasons we have to keep watching. Stay well and best regards, Stephen. Hey, that's a nice way to end the show. Thank you, Stephen. That's so lovely. And I like that he says, well, I mean, listen, don't worry. If you send any mean email, Mark gets it. I don't. There's only very few. I mean, if there's good feedback, Mark, you'll give it to me, right? In other words, if there's something that I'm doing or if I made a mistake, we'll correct that. That's not a problem. If you want to be mean for the sake of being mean now, it's not going to be good for me. Hey, that's not how Jilly rolls. All right, Mark, Another fantastic show. I can't believe it. If you have something going on in your financial life and you need our assistance, all you have to do is go to our website, jillonmoney.com jillonmoney.com and click the contact us button. Write us a note, and if you would like us to get you on the air live. When I say us, I mean that would be Mark. He would be doing it. He's doing all the work. So let us know. And if you see anything out there that's causing you consternation or you're carrying around a burden about something, just get in touch with us. It's really, we're here for you. We really don't have anything to sell except just having fun on this show and trying to take the mystery out of your financial lives. That's it. We don't do more than that. So just know that we're here for you. Get in touch with us. You can subscribe to us on the Odyssey app or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. As always, we do ask that you lift someone up. Change your work, change your wealth, change your life. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you tomorrow. Hey, gang, here's the thing about wine. Some of the best bottles are not sitting on a store shelf. They're being crafted at small, independent wineries. But those wines can be so hard to find sometimes I wish I had a personal sommelier to guide me to find the best wines I normally wouldn't be able to access. 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