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Episode 73: Goodbye 2025, Hello 2026 Thumbnail

Episode 73: Goodbye 2025, Hello 2026

Coasting in Retirement Financial Planning Investment Management Investments Pre-Retirees Retirees Retirement Funding Wealth Management

Segment 1: 

HELLO Lower Alabama! Hello Gulf Coast! Welcome in. Welcome to Coasting in Retirement! That’s. Right. Thanks for joining us today, Josh Null here, alongside returning guest co-host Jay Stubbs of Providence Partners. Jay, how you doing? Today we are recording not in our usual spot at Coastal College in downtown Fairhope, but over on Jay’s side of the pond in the Port City, Mobile, Alabama. 

Listeners: Jay and I are here today 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: First segment – deep dive on our topic of the day. 2nd segment - at about 30 minutes past the hour - “Headlines of the Week”. Then at roughly 50 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, that is a 100% locally owned, 100% 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! 

Let’s get on with the show. If you’re listening to this episode, the calendar year 2026 has officially begun, and I’ve got to ask you Jay, where the heck did 2025 go? What I would like to do with this opening segment is to discuss what we learned this past year, that is, things we learned about investing, or financial planning, or risk management, or basically anything that pertains to our audience, then I would like to ask Jay for his thoughts on what financial decisions and activities we recommend for folks to start the new year. I’ll start:

Josh (Here’s my list but let’s go one at a time, back-and-forth, with your list):

1. I learned this past year that the more hyper focused on got on our core service offering of financial planning and investment management, the more satisfied our clients became. We quit trying to be a jack of all trades and went super deep on financial planning, a broad term. I’ll expound. 

2. I learned that decision I made to go fully independent with Gulf Coast Financial Advisors back in April of 2024 was proven in 2025 to be even a better decision that I could have imagined back then. I’ll mention Trish Cooper, probably Matt Nelson in TX, client relationships, etc, I’ll expound. 

3. I learned that leaning into the strategic partnerships that GCFA has with related professionals, such as Jay Stubbs and his company Providence Partners, helped me clearly assemble and define my “A” Team. I’ll expound. 

When we pivot to our recommended financial activities for the start of 2026, here’s a few items from your text:

1. Insurance policy review for the new year, for example, if you had an increase in income this year, is your current disability income policy adequate? 

2. Coordinate group benefits with personally-controlled policies 

1. While there are certain windows investors missed with tax-deductible contributions to qualified retirement plans, it’s still not too late for tax planning, if you file early or on time. And it could make a huge difference in your bottom, particularly you Schedule C folks out there that have been a business with a six-figure+ revenue stream.

2. I recommend do a “interest-rate and risk score” assessment on your investments now. There is downward pressure on interest rates as we head into 2026. Is there a fixed income solution you need to take a look at now? On the flip side, does your risk tolerance match the risk score of your investments? If not, why not? Should it? 

3. For those of you that have a financial advisor, it’s time to demand more. 

Listeners, if you’ve liked what you’ve heard and want to set up a follow up conversation with the team at Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, it’s easy. You can call us at 251-327-2124 or find us on our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a meeting on my calendar. There are flexible meeting choices for your convenience – it can be as simple as a 15-minute introductory phone call, a 30-minute zoom, or my preference, an in-person meeting at any of our 3 office locations: Downtwon Fairhope, Orange Beach just down the road from the Wharf, or in Mobile off Dauphin St and I-65. Reach out to us - 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 relevant to those of you in or near retirement, then give you our honest opinion about these headlines. So join us after the break to hear me discuss this week’s relevant headlines in our “Headlines of the Week” segment. Stay tuned!

Segment 2 - News of the Week:

Welcome back to Coasting in Retirement, your host Josh Null here, alongside guest co-host Jay Stubbs of Providence Partners. As we discussed before the break, every week we scour the world wide web for financial articles that pertain to those of you in or near retirement. Our job, or at least we tell ourselves it is, 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. Now without further adieu, here’s the Headlines of the Week! 

1. Alright Jay, let’s start with a site I found called “LTCNews”, LTC as in Long Term Care. They have a recent article titled ”New 2026 Tax Break Lets You Tap Retirement Savings Penalty-Free for Long-Term Care Insurance”. Starting this Friday, January 1st, the IRS is rolling out a brand-new rule that lets you pull up to $2,600 a year out of your 401(k) or IRA to pay for long-term care insurance premiums—completely penalty-free, even if you're under 59 and a half.

On top of that, they’ve just bumped the tax-deductible limit for seniors over age 70 to $6,200 per person. It feels like the government is practically begging us to buy these policies. But Jay, when I see the IRS making it easier to tap our retirement accounts to pay for insurance, it makes me wonder: Are they doing this to help us, or is this just a way for the government to offload the massive cost of aging onto our private savings because they know Medicaid can’t handle the 2026 'Silver Tsunami'?"

https://www.ltcnews.com/articles/new-tax-break-tap-retirement-savings-penalty-free-long-term-care-insurance 

2. Our next article is from Financial Planning.com and titled “5 estate planning tax snares to avoid in 2026”. There’s a couple of important pieces of information to consider in this article, but as an advisor that just finished our annual RMD calculation run for my clients, I want to focus on the clarified rules around Inherited IRAs first. With the new OBBBA legislation, the IRS is officially requiring Annual Required Minimum Distributions for most non-spouse beneficiaries if the original owner had already started their RMDs. The article warns that if your kids miss just one of these payments, they face a 25% penalty on the amount they should have taken. In the old days, i.e., before Covid and the Secure Act, a lot of inherited IRA recipients could utilize a stretch provision related to their life expectancy. What a lot of newbie Inherited IRA recipients may not realize is that the IRS does not give you a heads up that a RMD is due, but they will surely penalize you if they catch the miss. Jay, do you think a lot of people whiffed on their RMD this year, and what else stuck out to you in this article? 

https://www.financial-planning.com/opinion/estate-planning-tax-pitfalls-to-avoid-in-the-wake-of-obbba?utm_source=fsi&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=distributionpartner 

3. Next up is an article from AARP titled AARP report on the "6 Big Social Security Changes for 2026. Probably the change that is getting the most attention is the 2.8% COLA increase, which results in about $56 more a month for the average retired worker. But on the flip side of that, Medicare Part B premiums are jumping nearly 10%, rising to $202.90 a month, which means nearly a third of that COLA increase is being clawed back by the government before it even hits the retiree's bank account. Also noteworthy is the Taxable Wage Base jump to $184,500. If you’re a high-earner still in the workforce, you’re going to be paying Social Security taxes on an extra $8,400 of income this year. And one last point that matters to a lot of you retirees drawing social security but still working, there’s the revised Earnings Test limits. If you are under full retirement age in 2026, you can now earn up to $24,480 before they start clawing back your benefits—that’s up about a thousand bucks from 2025. But if you go over that limit, the SSA takes $1 for every $2 you earn, so you have to be careful. What’s your thoughts on these changes, Jay, or just your general thoughts are social security? 

https://www.aarp.org/social-security/biggest-2026-changes/ 

Listeners, if you’ve liked what you’ve heard and want to discuss your own personal retirement dreams and goals, then us a call at 251-327-2124, or find us through our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a meeting on my calendar. We have several meeting choices for your convenience – it can be as simple as a 15-minute introductory phone call, all the way to an in-person meeting at any of our 3 office locations: Downtown Fairhope, Orange Beach, or Mobile, near the intersection of Dauphin St and I-65. Reach out to us - we would love to meet you! 

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, all by my lonesome today in studio. 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. Since we’re kicking off 2026 here, let’s take a minute to make some fun predictions we can look back on after this year whizzes by just like the last one…. 

Well, listeners, I hope you enjoyed a little peek into how we form our opinions and make predictions. We invite you one last time, if you would like to have a no-pressure, no-obligation conversation about your investing goals and retirement dreams, you can call us at 251-327-2124, or find us through our website gulfcoastfa.com. One our site, click on the blue button in the upper right-hand corner to set up a meeting on my calendar. We have several meeting choices for your convenience – it can be as simple as a 15-minute introductory phone call, all the way to an in-person meeting at any of our 3 office locations. You can find GCFA offices in downtown Fairhope, or Orange Beach off Canal Road, or in Mobile off Dauphin St and I-65. Reach out to us - we would love to meet you! 

That’s our show for this week! I want to give a huge thank you to my guest co-host, Jay Stubbs, and for his company Providence Partners being our long time show sponsor, thank you to our awesome radio station, FM Talk 106.5 out of Mobile, 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, have a wonderful and productive week. This has been Coasting in Retirement with Josh Null! 

GCFA Disclosure:

Gulf Coast Financial Advisors, LLC ("GCFA”) is a registered investment adviser offering advisory services in the State of Alabama and in such other jurisdictions where it is registered, filed the required notices, or is otherwise excluded or exempted from such registration and/or notice filing requirements. Registration does not indicate or imply that GCFA has attained a particular level of skill or ability, nor does it constitute an endorsement of the firm by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or any state securities regulator.

The Coasting in Retirement radio program serves mainly to disseminate general information including those pertaining to GCFA’s advisory services, together with access to additional investment-related information, publications, materials and links. The publication of this radio show should not be construed by any client and/or prospective client as GCFA’s solicitation to effect, or attempt to effect transactions in securities, nor should it be interpreted as GCFA providing personalized investment advice, or any type of professional advice, for compensation, wherever this program is broadcast. Any subsequent, direct communication by GCFA with a prospective client will be conducted by a representative that is either registered or qualifies for an exemption or exclusion from registration in the state where the prospective client resides.

Certain information, news stories, headlines, data, charts, graphs, figures or statistics presented on this radio program may have been obtained from third-party sources that are believed to be generally reliable but which GCFA may not have independently verified. GCFA does not and cannot guarantee the timeliness, accuracy, or reliability of any such third-party information and undertakes no obligation to update or correct any information that may become obsolete, unreliable, or inaccurate. The radio program also contains the opinions, views, and perspectives expressed by Josh Null and any other GCFA representatives which are solely their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, or perspectives of GCFA as a firm. Such personal views and opinions should not be construed as endorsements or professional advice from GCFA. GCFA makes no representation or warranty regarding the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information on this radio program, and disclaims any liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage incurred from using or relying on such information.

GCFA, Aptus, Providence Benefits and Providence Partners are not affiliated, nor are any of their respective representatives.