# Has anyone attended a "Retirement Seminar"?



## Uptosnuff (Jul 26, 2021)

What did you think of it?  I see these advertised all over.  "What disbursement strategies to use" "How to Avoid Taxes in Retirement" "How to Live Your Best Retired Life"  etc., etc.


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## bowmore (Jul 26, 2021)

They are basically sales pitches to sell you annuities, Long Term Care insurance, etc.


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## Aunt Bea (Jul 26, 2021)

No.

Before Covid, I used to receive various invitations for a meal in exchange for attending a sales pitch about investments, retirement strategies, etc...  

I haven't seen one in over a year.

_"There's no such thing as a free lunch."_ - Milton Friedman


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## funsearcher! (Jul 26, 2021)

Yes, I went to several before I retired--listened to pitches from various financial advisors and to several Soc Sec  and Medicare people.
Good information and interesting to hear other people's questions--there is a lot of confusion out there. Ultimately I listened to my gut and found an advisor I can relate to instead of being talked down to.


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## OneEyedDiva (Jul 26, 2021)

No. I only attended two pre-retirement seminars for State of N.J. employees a couple of years before I retired in 1998. They weren't trying to sell anything, just giving advice about submitting retirement requests and other key retirement issues.


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## Llynn (Jul 26, 2021)

No. I subscribe to the position that an expert is just an average person more than fifty miles from home. I'll do my own research.


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## Murrmurr (Jul 26, 2021)

OneEyedDiva said:


> No. I only attended two pre-retirement seminars for State of N.J. employees a couple of years before I retired in 1998. They weren't trying to sell anything, just giving advice about submitting retirement requests and other key retirement issues.


Good point there, @Uptosnuff . Gov't entities and some corporations do very similar seminars. Someone in HR can hook you up.


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## Tom 86 (Jul 26, 2021)

I went to a couple several years ago.  Had some meals and a lot of pamphlets.  When I got home they were from another State.  So before my wife died after her Whipple surgery they put her in a Retirement & rehab place.  

  So I learned a lot about the retirement place by talking to ones that stayed there that we ate with.  Very nice place. has about everything you would need & it's all paid for in your monthly dues.  Which was  $75,000.00 down to get in, then $5,000.00 a month.  The 75,000.00 was in case you missed a month's payment they took it out of there.  If you never used any of it then it was put back into your estate when you passed.


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## Don M. (Jul 26, 2021)

We attended a couple, many years ago, while I was still in my prime working years.  They gave us some good ideas which we implemented, and have served us well.  As expected, most of these seminars are aimed at getting the participants to "buy into" whatever they are trying to sell, but if you ignore that, and focus in the important stuff, and learn to manage your own finances, etc., these seminars can be of value.


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## Cameron (Jul 26, 2021)

I've attended a few starting in the late 1990s .   while all were informative they all seem to come at retirement financially from the same point of view with varying degrees.   If earning X, need A put away and invested to have 70-80% of your income in retirement.    I ended up taking a bottom up approach looking more at what my expenses were and what i projected them to be after retiring.  Over the years I have also felt many of the advisors were not around during the last major bout of inflation and or stagflation and were not knowledgeable about investing in a different environment from the 'central banks have your back' so buy indexed etf's and all will be well.   However i tend to me pretty conservative with money, I think from reading lots of history and stories from my grandparents of life in the depression.


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## HarryHawk (Aug 4, 2021)

Before Covid I use to attend the seminars fairly regularly.   The ones I attended always included a nice dinner at a nice restaurant.  Usually about 30 - 40% of the information was interesting and useful.  I never attended one that used any high pressure techniques, normally they would just ask you to sign up for a follow up visit.  Usually half the people would just walk out at the end, half would sign up.  Everyone was always friendly and courteous.


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## Uptosnuff (Aug 4, 2021)

@HarryHawk and Don M.
I keep getting these invitations through the mail to attend dinner seminars at nice restaurants but have been really reluctant to go because I though it would be high-pressure sales.   Maybe I should give it a try.


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## mathjak107 (Aug 8, 2021)

Many of those dinners are paid for out of the pockets by the salesman presenting them .

I personally would never make someone trying to earn a living pay for me to attend something I have no or little interest in right from the start .

these presentations like David Lerner used to have are salesman paid for.

I wouldn’t want someone wasting my money or time at what I did for a living


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## mathjak107 (Aug 8, 2021)

Having said that I did have a friend who was a salesman at David Lerner and he wanted me to review the presentation ….

it was very interesting in the light of how no false hoods were told ,but the deal was still  not  the  deal most were thinking it was ..

so what do I mean by that ?

the product was the prudential fixed income index annuity …

it promised a guaranteed 5.50% interest in a 1% interest world .

so the way this works is your investment is linked to a bond index they created ... you get the higher of what the bond index does less all expenses  or 5.50% which is inclusive of all expenses .

so right off the bat , with bonds in the 1 to 2% range  the index being higher is out .

so lets see how this works .

at age 55 you give them 100k  with the intent of taking a life time payment out at 65 .

so at the end of year one you get your guaranteed 5.50% ...

now you have 105,500.

after 10 years of the guaranteed 5.50% you now have 180, 209.00 ...sounds great right ?

well that isnt the whole story ....that is called a virtual account . it is only used as a base to annuitize off of .it is not your money for the taking or to pass on .


so far you gave them 100k and 10 years later you are  going to annuitize a paycheck ,getting your money out .

the base amount is the 180,209 and you get 5% of that as a draw rate .

so your first payment is 9010 dollars .

at that rate it will take you 17 years of getting your own money back just to go on their dime . at age 76 you now got back 108,125.00

so in 18 years you made 8125.00 ...that is a .69% return on your money .

in fact if you live to 90 the most you can see is 4.55% .

so did they give you 5.50% as promised ... yep .  but that is not a return of 5.50% on your money . it can be as little as .69% if you die at 77 ..

so most people will never be able to understand these products fully .

it isnt a bad product in a 1% interest world but it isnt the deal you thought it was either .

no insurer will ever show you a breakout of an annuity like this below


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## mathjak107 (Aug 8, 2021)

one more point .

keep in mind in annuity products they can give you any guaranteed growth they like .... why ? because that guaranteed growth is in a virtual account you cant access .

so by controlling how much of that growth you actually can get at they are guaranteeing you will never see the growth the virtual account  got .

in the example above you can see each year they give you 1/10 % more  of the 5.50% .

at 55 you get 4% of the virtual balance and 10 years later you get just 5% of the balance yet the balance in that account rose to 180k. yet all you got was 1% more .

so all these products are way way to complex for the average person to evaluate .

you have uninformed people bragging all the time about their guaranteed growth in these products yet they dont understand what they own .


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## Mitch86 (Aug 8, 2021)

Independent living centers, assisted living centers and nursing homes send me invitations to attend their introductory seminars every day.  At my age of 86 I am on all those mailing lists.  All of us here are elderly by definition. Maybe all of us here could meet once per week on zoom to comfort each other................................  What do others think?


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## WhatInThe (Aug 9, 2021)

If retired just learn how things work, what they are along with relying on what ever. Just doing taxes yourself step by step line by line and you can learn alot.

If not retired yet invest some money now even if conservative low yield. Do not wait until your first week in the rocking chair. Accumulate or save some money just for investing. Don't have to do anything with it but you want to be ready to start, get into something.


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## Mitch86 (Aug 9, 2021)

WhatInThe said:


> If retired just learn how things work, what they are along with relying on what ever. Just doing taxes yourself step by step line by line and you can learn alot.
> 
> If not retired yet invest some money now even if conservative low yield. Do not wait until your first week in the rocking chair. Accumulate or save some money just investing. Don't have to do anything with it but you want to be ready to start, get into something.


Just invest all you can spare in Amazon stock. I've done this for the last six years with great results.


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## mathjak107 (Aug 9, 2021)

Mitch86 said:


> Just invest all you can spare in Amazon stock. I've done this for the last six years with great results.


Or back in the day General Motors , or Polaroid or Kodak ,   Or any of the other biggest companies of their day that eventually ended up in the bluest of blue chip graveyard .

betting the ranch on any company is about the worst thing one can do in investing. Even Cisco never got back to where it was  a decade ago


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## Liberty (Aug 10, 2021)

mathjak107 said:


> Or back in the day General Motors , or Polaroid or Kodak ,   Or any of the other biggest companies of their day that eventually ended up in the bluest of blue chip graveyard .
> 
> betting the ranch on any company is about the worst thing one can do in investing. Even Cisco never got back to where it was  a decade ago


So agree...the normal person can't beat plain old index funds so why try?!  Nothing stays the same - the only thing permanent in life is change.  Risk/reward rules.


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## mathjak107 (Aug 10, 2021)

Actually stock picking is not hard .. what makes it hard to beat indexes is the fact indexes don’t have expenses of rent , lights , employees , etc .

individuals can do fine if bad investor behavior does not do them in .

many funds have stock pickers that are very good as well ..but the costs of running a small fund eats to much in to their alpha .

morningstar found if you stick to the largest 20% of stock funds your odds of beating indexing jump to 80%.

many individuals who pick individua stocks don’t commit the same dollars as investors tend to put in to diversified funds , self included .

I would never bet as much on the whims of individual companies as I do my diversified funds that have no individual company risk


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## Mitch86 (Aug 10, 2021)

Amazon today, Amazon yesterday and Amazon tomorrow.  I will live and die with Jeff Bezos.


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## Colleen (Aug 10, 2021)

The only "invitations" we get in the mail are from The Neptune Society...haha.


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## Liberty (Aug 11, 2021)

mathjak107 said:


> Actually stock picking is not hard .. what makes it hard to beat indexes is the fact indexes don’t have expenses of rent , lights , employees , etc .
> 
> individuals can do fine if bad investor behavior does not do them in .
> 
> ...


That's interesting about beating the index.  That's hard to do.  Our funds are very large...don't know if they are in the top 20% - they're Schwab.  Have to check it out.   Thanks for the info, mathjak!


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## mathjak107 (Aug 12, 2021)

Liberty said:


> That's interesting about beating the index.  That's hard to do.  Our funds are very large...don't know if they are in the top 20% - they're Schwab.  Have to check it out.   Thanks for the info, mathjak!


my fidelity contra , fidelity growth  company , fidelity blue chip growth  all have been beating a total market fund for decades


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## Liberty (Aug 13, 2021)

mathjak107 said:


> my fidelity contra , fidelity growth  company , fidelity blue chip growth  all have been beating a total market fund for decades


Yes, VGT has done great with zip costs...who was it said "living well is the best revenge"...lol.


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## mathjak107 (Aug 14, 2021)

Vglt is a sector fund so it’s index would not be the same as broad based funds


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## ronaldj (Aug 14, 2021)

no but I should, everything I read says I cannot afford to retire. 
been retired for eleven years now.


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## mathjak107 (Aug 14, 2021)

ronaldj said:


> no but I should, everything I read says I cannot afford to retire.
> been retired for eleven years now.


Like what said you can’t retire except click bait articles ?there is no accredited article or study that tells you what you need to retire


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## Liberty (Aug 14, 2021)

mathjak107 said:


> Vglt is a sector fund so it’s index would not be the same as broad based funds


VGT is an information tech fund.  It has beat its index.  Also have a dividend fund that always beats its index.  Never paid much attention to index beating though...just like to see the nice upswing...lol.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704541304575099923292390864


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## mathjak107 (Aug 14, 2021)

Beating indexes is not what good investing is about .

itvis about finding a combination of funds that meet your goals .

I have been beating a total market /s&p fund for decades even though the funds themselves may not .

many funds I use are used through their sweet spot then swapped  when need be …

the portfolio has blown away indexing with managed fidelity funds that have higher expenses .

Not all  the funds beat their index … but the portfolio as a team performs much better .

growth portfolio 

https://www.fmandi.com/about/performance/perf_gr.php

sector portfolio 

https://www.fmandi.com/about/performance/perf_s.php


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