Episode 50: How to Invest in 2025…and Beyond
Segment 1 (Show Open):
HELLO Lower Alabama! Hello Gulf Coast! Welcome in. Welcome to Coasting in Retirement! That’s. Right. Thanks for joining us today, we’re excited to have you! Josh Null here, regular co-host Michelle is off this week, joining me once again is regular fill-in Jay Stubbs with Providence Partners. Jay, how you doing buddy?
Listeners: Jay and I are here to discuss financial topics relevant to those of you in or near retirement, living your best life along our part of the Gulf Coast. Here’s what we’ve got in store for you today: First segment – deep dive on our topic of the day. 2nd segment - at about 25 minutes past the hour - “News Headlines of the Week”. Then at roughly 45 minutes past the hour, stick around for our 3rd segment, we call it” Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth”. So buckle up, we’ve got a lot to get to!
Quick background on me for those new to the show. Again, my name is Josh Null, I am a fee-based financial advisor, I hold my FINRA Series 65 securities license, and I am the owner of Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, we are an independent investment management and financial planning firm with offices in Fairhope, Orange Beach, and Mobile! You can find more information on me and the team at Gulf Coast Financial Advisors by visiting our website gulfcoastfa.com, or feel free to give us a call at 251-327-2124. If you missed that contact info, get a pen and pad ready because we will repeat our contact info several times throughout the show!
So Jay, the question we’re going to tackle today is both a timely one and a timeless one: how concerned should investors be with investing their money into tax-deferred accounts or products, versus what are the pros and cons of investing in after tax accounts? Should investors be leaning fully into what is technically called qualified retirement accounts, or is this a good time to look at beefing up their after-tax accounts, or, maybe even considering a Roth conversion? Our financial services industry has historical operated under the assumption that tax rates are going to go up in the future, but my question to you Jay is…are we so sure? I seem to recall some recent chatter about abolishing income taxes totally, right? Even if something as drastic as the elimination of income taxes never comes to pass, which, listeners, I would not hold my breath on that one, there still is a lot of planning that guys like Jay and I do around tax planning and trying to minimize our client’s tax exposure to the letter of the law. There’s a balance to all of this, and today we hope to both explain the different options available to investors and give our educated opinion on how to maximize the impact of them. Let’s do this first Jay, let’s layout the different types of accounts and products available to clients on both the pre-tax and after-tax side, and let’s even talk a little bit about tax-free while were at it. Sound good?
First, listeners, you’re going to here Jay and I use a couple of phrases often in this conversation, namely Qualified accounts or money vs Non-Qualified accounts or money, so let’s start with a definition to help you understand what we are referring to. In general, qualified retirement accounts are tax-advantaged plans that include options like 401(k)s, 403(b)s, 457s and IRAs. The IRS offers some type of tax-preferential treatment to the money held in these accounts in exchange for some restrictions, which we will discuss. A 401(k) group retirement plan is commonly offered by private-sector employers and allows employees to contribute a portion of their salary before taxes, which can grow tax-deferred until retirement. Similarly, 403(b) plans are designed for employees of public schools and certain non-profit organizations, with 457 plans are being offered primarily to state and local governmental employees, with both plans offering tax-deferred growth. Also note that there is a growing trend of offering a Roth 401(k) option with retirement plans.
IRAs, or Individual Retirement Accounts, come in several forms, including Traditional IRAs, which allow for tax-deductible contributions, similar to a 401(k), and Roth IRAs, where contributions are made with after-tax dollars, but qualified withdrawals in retirement are tax-free.
For you solo-entrepreneurs or family-based small businesses, there’s the SEP IRA option, and for business owners with less than 100 employees, there’s a group plan called a Simple IRA.
So, Jay, I just listed a whole bunch of different accounts, let’s take each one at a time and discuss further, including contribution limits for each plan, and the restrictions to accessing this money that I mentioned earlier. We also want to dispel the myths around that one type of account is better than the other.
Josh & Jay open discussion here.
Now let’s pivot to the non-qualified accounts. Non-qualified accounts are a little easier to get your head around, in fact, I would wager that nearly ever single listener to this show owns a non-qualified account. The most common type of non-qualified account that Jay and I deal with in our everyday work life is an after-tax brokerage account, or what would be a called an individual account in the fee-for-service advisory world. But even those of you without a brokerage account probably have a checking account or savings account, which by definition are considered non-qualified. As opposed to qualified accounts, there is no tax preferential treatment in non-qualified accounts, you’ll report your gains or losses every year on your tax return, but there’s also non of the age 59 ½ access restrictions or contribution limits.
Josh & Jay open discussion about why someone would hold significant assets in a non-qualified account, how to open one, etc.
So far Jay, we’ve been talking about traditional accounts typically held with a well-known custodian, for example, a brokerage account at Schwab, or maybe a 401k held at Empower. As we close this segment out, I want to discuss a related product that has both features of a NQ and Qualified account, and one you have extensive experience with: annuities. Tell us about the tax features with annuities, and why that might appeal to investors looking to diversify their investment accounts:
Very good. Alright listeners, for those of you that would like to start the conversation about your own personal investing goals and retirement dreams, we encourage you to reach out to us. You can reach us by phone at 251-327-2124, or through our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, you can choose to send us a direct message, or you can click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a 15-minute introductory phone call on my calendar. Plus for those of you that like to do business in person, like I do, you can always schedule a no-obligation, no BS first meeting at any of our 3 convenient locations: downtown Fairhope, or Orange Beach just down the road from the Wharf, or in Mobile off Dauphin St and I-65. We would love to meet you!
Alright folks, coming up next - There’s always a lot going on in the world! Particularly the world of finance, investments and money. Every week we scour the internet for financial articles related to our topic of the day, especially articles that pertain to those in or near retirement. Join us after the break to hear Jay and I discuss this week’s relevant headlines in our “News Headlines of the Week” segment. Stay tuned!
Segment 2 - News of the Week:
Welcome back to Coasting in Retirement, your host Josh Null here! As we discussed before the break, every week we scour the internet for financial articles related to our topic of the day, especially articles that pertain to those of you in or near retirement. Our job is to help you all understand how these headlines impact you, especially when it comes to your money! Note – if you want to read our referenced articles yourself, we also include the links in our show transcript, which you can find on our website gulfcoastfa.com under the podcast tab. Alright Jay, before I get started, another quick note. Usually, we find articles that tie back into our main topic in our first segment. However, while we try not to time-stamp these episodes, I think we would be remiss to not address the extreme volatility we’ve seen this past week both in the stock market and in the broader world. So every headline that I dish to you will be fresh off the press. Ready?
1. First article is from our friends at Motley Fool, and it’s titled “The Nasdaq Just Hit Correction Territory. History Says the Stock Market Will Do This Next (Hint: It May Surprise You). Josh – fill Jay in on your recent CIR episode where you talked about the past 50 year history of the major indexes.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/03/07/nasdaq-correction-stock-market-do-next-surprise/
2. Next up, let’s pivot to Reuters and their recent article titled “Investors seek clarity on tariffs form Trump White House”.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/investors-seek-clarity-tariffs-trump-white-house-2025-03-07/
3. Alright Jay, I hope you’re ready for this one, it’s from one of my favorite sites, Market Watch, and it’s titled “America’s job market is eerily similar to the 1990’s dot-com boom. Should we be worried?”.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-job-market-is-eerily-similar-to-the-1990s-dot-com-boom-should-we-be-worried-604d5d6c?mod=home_ln
4. Last article, Fox Business: “US economy added 151,000 jobs in February, below expectations”.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/us-jobs-report-february-2025
Listeners, I hope you learned something from our discussion around these recent financial headlines, all of this matters to your money! Speaking of money, if you would like to start the conversation with us about your business succession planning, or with your individual retirement planning and investment management, then why don’t you give us a call at 251-327-2124, I know when radio show leads call in so I’ll often answer, or you can always reach out to us via our contact page on our website, gulfcoastfa.com. Don’t forget to click the blue button in the upper right corner to put a 15-minute introductory phone call on my calendar!
Alright folks, coming up next: Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth. What have been some of my predictions? Have I been right? Was I ever wrong? How wrong? What do I think is going to affect investors in the near future, or maybe the distant future? We talk about all of these things and poke a little fun at my big mouth. Stay tuned!
Segment 3 – Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth:
Welcome back! Your host Josh Null here, alongside guest co-host Jay Stubbs of Providence Partners. So, I am opinionated, I have strong opinions at times, I would say a radio show host that isn’t probably wouldn’t be very interesting to listen to. And I am paid in my profession to offer professional guidance and opinions to my clients, otherwise what use am I? Just replace me with AI. I like making predictions, and while I usually proved right, there are times I swing and I miss. Want to hear me eat a little crow? Then let’s get at with Josh’s Crystal Ball and Big Mouth.
So Jay, since we already went down memory lane with our first podcast Every Dollar counts in the opening segment, I thought I would re-visit another thing we talked about way back when. Remember Covid? Remember runaway inflation? So, for probably the last time, I am going to own my incredibly pollyannish prediction I made on one of our episodes way back when, I think August of 2021, that inflation, based on simply mathematically probabilities, would not last much longer. Swung and missed. Fortunately, I don’t think I made any predictions around the longevity of Covid, all I can tell the listeners, is that for better or worse, many of us on the Gulf Coast got back to our regular daily routines far quicker than a lot of the rest of the country. I made a trip to see a cousin of mine in Michigan in September of 2021, and it was like I was visiting from another country, or planet even. The reason I bring this up Jay is because history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme, so what does your crystal ball say around how concerned Americans should be with the recent inflation data AND the disturbing news around the bird flu? (Jay – you probably already now this, but their finding bird flu in mammals, not good, don’t want to scare the listeners but do want to have an adult conversation about it)
Listeners, I hoped you enjoyed a little behind the scenes commentary on how Jay and I form our opinions, and that as fathers and husbands, we are human, and we do pay attention to broad world events. We invite you, one last time, if you would like to have a free, no-obligation conversation on the investment choices in your retirement accounts, and to you business owners tuning in and wanting to learn more about succession planning, then give us a call. You can reach us at 251-327-2124, or through our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, you can choose to send us a direct message, or you can click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a 15-minute introductory phone call on my calendar.
Folks, that is it for this week! I want to give a huge thank you to my guest co-host Jay Stubbs, thank you to our show sponsor, Jay’s business Providence Partners, thank you to our long-time awesome radio station FM Talk 106.5 out of Mobile, and a huge welcome to those of you just tuning in on WHEP 92.5 FM & 1310 AM, many thanks to the provider of our show music, local band Sloth Racer, huge thank to the show producer, my son Payton Null, and as always my sincere appreciation for all of your out there that have been listening and joining us on this journey. We would love to be a part of your journey as well! Until we talk again next week, have a wonderful and productive week. This has been Coasting in Retirement with Josh Null!
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