In this episode, I talk about the importance of having a beneficiary, your healthcare advocates, and some estate planning tips. Along with some market updates and what’s going on in the financial world.

This is the 1715 Treasure Coast Financial Wellness Podcast, where we'll keep you up to speed with the latest market news and conditions every week. Now, here's your host, Thomas Davies. Welcome to another edition of the 1715 Treasure Coast Financial Wellness Podcast. My name is Thomas Davies.

I'm a wealth advisor here in Stewart, Florida, and welcome. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you like what you hear today, and hopefully you found it a little informational and educational. So with that, we'll get started. In this episode, we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the market news that's going on.

It was a big week. We're gonna talk about beneficiaries, also about TOD accounts, a little bit about estate planning that all kind of ties into that, and also some holiday planning as November and the holidays are right around the corner. So here we go. So top news, Twitter going private.

Elon Musk completes the deal, and the stock is delisted from the exchanges. Big news. We'll see what happens. Does Donald Trump get his Twitter account back?

We'll see. Might happen on Monday. Big earnings week this week. We had Apple, Amazon, Google, and Meta that all reported earnings this week, and everything traded lower on those earnings.

Some beat, some didn't. I'm not gonna go into the details on what those were. You can look those up, but everything seemed to trade lower in the tech space for most of the week. We got GDP reports this week, 2.6% in the third quarter.

Are we going into a recession? We'll see. If GDP continues to grow, we're not gonna get that recession, and it may be more of a softer landing than the outlook and economists have been calling for that hard landing. Interest rates continue to rise in the mortgage market, still hearing those 7 1⁄2 plus.

The Fed seems to still be on track to raise 75 basis points here in the November meeting. With November comes elections. A lot of things are starting to ramp up in the election sector, and the primaries, and hearing everything. I know my mailbox is getting stuffed every day with vote for this person, vote for that person.

I think the main thing is is get out there and vote. Make your vote count, because if you don't vote, then you have no voice. You don't count. Anyway, the markets are having a nice rebound off their lows.

That has been a nice little relief here during the week, and it seems to, question, is it just a market rally, a bounce in bear market, or is this something maybe a little more as the earnings have come out, and that hurricane that someone else mentioned about happening, maybe it might just be a little bit of a storm. Time will tell if we're still just in this bear market, and this is just a bear market bounce. With that, I've been hearing and talking to people during the week here, and just really hearing some horror stories of accounts being down 40, 50 plus percent. I can tell you, 50 percent should never be an option.

To lose half your account is just devastating, and that should really just never be an option. If you're out there and your account is down 40, 50 percent, give me a call. Let's take a look and see what's going on. You may have been in tech, which you look at Meta's down 70 percent year to date.

That space has really been hammered, it's uncomfortable, doesn't feel good, and like I said, 40 to 50 percent should really never be an option. There should be some protection built into your portfolios. I talk about this with a lot of my clients, that dependent upon your age, you're either in grow and protect, or you're in protect and growth mode, and based on your age, and your risk tolerance also, really where you should be, but 40 to 50 percent should never be an option. You should never sit with an advisor and have them tell you, well, it's possible you could lose half your money.

I mean, that's unthinkable. Does it happen? Well, it certainly does, and it's happening to some people that I've spoken to, and my heart goes out to them, because that, once again, that should just really never be an option. You know, so with that, let's talk about a couple things that, once again, that comes up during the week, and what makes this podcast, and I want to talk about beneficiaries this week, and have them updated.

A lot of things happen in our life, in our lives, that unfortunately, people come and go in our lives. Maybe you have recently been divorced, and you have an IRA or 401k. Have you updated your beneficiary? I think the last thing that you want to happen is something for that to happen to you, and your ex-spouse gets all your monies.

You know, so, you know, if that's something that's recently done, if you've been divorced recently, make sure your beneficiaries are updated. You know, some people fall out of favor also, you know, and if that's happened, you know, in your life, it's unfortunate, but it does happen. Once again, you know, make sure that those beneficiaries are in place. Another type of an account that, you know, we open are what they call transfer on death accounts, or TOD accounts.

If you're not familiar with them, basically what happens is, is if that individual passes away, that those assets transfer on death. That's simple, TOD, right? Transfer on death. And it helps ease a lot of the probate and some of the things that accounts get frozen, waiting for death certificates, certain paperwork.

And, you know, so it's something you maybe want to look at in your accounts. This is more specific to taxable accounts, not necessarily retirement accounts. Retirement accounts, you can typically name beneficiaries in those accounts, but your individual accounts, you can add that TOD paperwork to those accounts. And it really makes things easier for those individuals if something were to happen to you.

Once again, you want to check with an estate planning attorney, if you have one, and see if that may be a way to help further things along. With that, you know, we'll talk about trusts a little bit. I'll talk more at a financial advisor capacity or financial consultant capacity than an estate planning attorney, which I am not. But a trust generally, if you have $500,000 or more in assets, you're probably going to want to have a trust.

And I'm not going to go into too much details what a trust is, the difference between a trust and a will. And we're going to have an estate planning attorney here on the show in the next couple of weeks. And we'll take a deep dive on why it is you maybe need a trust. And if you don't have that, you certainly need a will.

There is some great options out there that are fairly inexpensive. There is a trust and will online that you can do. It's about $150, $160, or, you know, for an individual. Send me an email.

You know, I can point you in the right direction for those that are cost-conscious. Maybe you don't have 500 or $1,000 to go out and hire an attorney to do a will for you. There are some other options out there that are a little less expensive. But you definitely want to have a will, have something, and those healthcare advocates, if something were to happen to you, you want to make sure that you have someone in place for you to make those vital decisions for you that you trust.

Otherwise, you're just going to rely on those doctors and nurses who you have no relationship with. So get the healthcare advocates. Get a will if you don't have a will. And, you know, if you have $500,000 or more in assets, you're probably going to want to look into getting a trust.

And once again, you know, reach out to an estate planning attorney, and we will have one on the show in the next couple of weeks to really kind of go into the details between a trust and a will. You know, we work specifically with estate planning attorneys to make sure that the accounts are set up correctly. You know, especially in larger families where there's a lot of assets, we want to make sure that those accounts are titled correctly to make sure that, you know, when something does happen, that the wait time is minimal and there's no confusion. It's really, you know, this is for people who, you know, can make claims for your assets after you pass.

If you're just an individual, you know, by yourself with no immediate family or, you know, not too close, then, you know, it's something that you maybe you don't need to do. Well, one of the things that we have here at Davies Wealth Management is a peace of mind checklist. And what that is, is a place for you to write down your passwords, vital documents, where those are kept, and everything kind of in between. Now, some of you say, well, I have all that stuff that's in my computer.

Well, who has the password to your computer? This is a place where you can write that down. It just makes things a little easier for if something happens to you. Once again, that trusted advisor or someone that you're going to leave this with can go in and find where all your vital documents are, bank accounts, whatever it is that you're going to write down here.

And there's a very long list of items on here that you can just, like I said, write stuff down, give it to someone that you trust, you know, maybe lock it in a safe. So, you know, if something happens once again, they can go in and, you know, that list will be there. And it's really just another layer to protect your assets and help your loved ones when something does happen to you in time of passing. So hopefully you find that helpful.

I will put a link in the description down below that you can download that. And if you'd like, if you can't download it, just drop me a line. I'll shoot you an email or I'll put one even in the mail to you if need be. So hopefully you find that helpful.

With that, you know, once again, that's a little bit on estate planning. And, you know, we'll kind of wrap that up there with that. Lastly here, we're gonna get into the holidays and holiday planning. Oh boy, Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's and all the other holidays that are in between.

You know, we look forward to those. And it's also one of the easiest times to overspend. Have a budget, make a naughty and nice list. You know, try to set a budget for how much you wanna spend in gifts.

And it's just so easy to overspend. You know, you wanna try to do for everybody. I think of my mom who always wanted to just give to everybody. And it's like, you know, you just can't.

Unfortunately, you know, you just can't. And so, you know, make that naughty and nice list, you know, and try to allocate. Say, okay, well, this is how much I'm gonna spend this holiday season. A lot of people don't think about that.

And unfortunately, they open their credit card bills in January and they go, oh my God, I can't believe I spent that much money. So, you know, try to have a budget, a little bit of financial planning there for your holidays. And for those of us that are trying to lose a little weight, you can actually budget your calories. There's some great apps out there that will help you do that one being MyFitnessPal, which is free.

You can budget your calories for the day. So I'm not gonna talk about weight loss too much. I'm excited next week, we're gonna have Dr. Ahuva Gamliel on here and we're gonna talk about some natural medicines, weight loss, and, you know, some of the things that go along with that.

So I'm excited about next week to do that. So anyway, you know, don't forget to like and subscribe, shoot those comments to me and questions. That's what I'm here for. We're here to answer those questions and comments.

And if there's anything specific you'd like to hear on the show, any specific topics, let me know, shoot me an email or just, you know, drop a comment on YouTube there. Or if you're listening on the podcast, you know, give us a shout, send it, drop us an email or give us a call. So that's gonna be it for this week on the 1715 Treasure Coast Financial Podcast. I hope you found it interesting and we are out.

Thank you for listening to the 1715 Treasure Coast Financial Wellness Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend who might like it. And please rate, comment, and subscribe. If you'd like to contact us, find more information, or if you'd like to keep up with us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn, check out our website at www.tdwealth.net.

Have a great day and we'll talk to you next week.