Get Your Annuity Income Ducks in a Row: Shootin' It Straight With Stan

Welcome to Shootin' It Straight With Stan. I am your host, Stan The Annuity Man, America's annuity agent, licensed in all 50 states. Today's topic is get your annuity income ducks in a row. I just like when the Uncle Chesters of the world say things like, "Get your ducks in a row, son, Stan, you need to get your ducks in a row." I'm like, "Okay." I love all those Southernisms and things like that, and it might be a Midwesternism. I mean, I guess you could categorize it as a rural Americaism. Rural America, I love. I don't care where you are. Rural America is rural America. It's the same place, and I love it. Great food, good people, down-to-earth, etc.

‌I live part-time in Florida, and I always tell people that there's the coast of Florida, and then there's a drive across the state of Florida, which is rural America. Florida is completely different. Great people, great restaurants, but people think of Florida; they have Disney in mind, Miami, Tampa, or the Keys. No, no, no. The middle of Florida, it's just like your state. Rural America is where the rubber meets the road. That's where the ducks are getting in a row. So, when we're talking about putting your annuity income ducks in a row or putting your income ducks in a row, let me explain what that means to me and what it should mean to you.

‌Chapter two of your life or retirement, whatever that means to you, is when you just need money hitting the bank account to go live your life. You can go however long that's going to be. Chapter two is going to be about you. It's going to be about lifestyle; it's going to be about reclaiming your health. Can I get an annuity hallelujah on that one? You're going to focus on yourself once and for all, but you need to get your annuity income ducks in a row or income ducks, period.

‌Now, let's go through some of those duck types, right? Isn't this great? This is rural America, income planning with ducks. I can talk like that. I'm from Charlotte, North Carolina. I can twine with the best of them. There are times I'm talking to my mom, and my wife will be there, and she goes, "Why are you talking like that?" I'm like, "You mean southern?" I don't know. When you're southern or you talk with the twang, when you're around other people that twang, you just twang automatically. You just mirror that sound. I don't know why that is, but I do that.

‌"Duck" Types

‌I worked in New York City for a while, and then when I came back to the South, they're like, "Man, you talk funny." I'm like, "Yeah, I was in New York." "You talk funny." Some of those things. But the first annuity duck you have is Social Security. It's the best inflation annuity on the planet because the increases are politically driven, not actuarily driven, but that is an annuity. Whether you hate annuities, love annuities, hate Stan The Annuity Man, hate everybody or hate anything with the word annuity in it, you already own one. If you have a pension with a company or you work for the government, etc., that is an annuity as well. That's a lifetime income stream. That's another annuity duck, an income duck, as they say.

‌Now, if you have a rental property kicking off an income stream, that's an income duck. If you have legacy stocks that are dividend-type stocks, legacy dividend stocks, that's an income duck. If you have, say, AAA, AAA municipal bonds, that's paying tax-free income, that's an income duck. Immediate Annuities, Deferred Income Annuities, and Qualified Longevity Annuity Contracts are all lifetime income products, annuitized type products. Those are income ducks. CDs or Multi-Year Guarantee Annuities, the annuity industry version of a CD where you can just peel off interest and not touch the principal, are income ducks.

‌Some income ducks are for lifetime, as long as you're breathing. Some income ducks are for a specific period of time, like CDs, bonds, or Multi-Year Guarantee Annuities, where you're just peeling off the interest and not touching the principal. But income's income, a duck's a duck, right? If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and has a duck feed, it's a duck. If it's kicking off money into your bank account every single month, that's a duck. Now, some ducks are better than others I guess, but what you're trying to do in chapter two of your life is get your income ducks in a row.

‌Inflation

‌Now, what happens when you need more ducks? That's a great correlation to inflation. Forget inflation; I need another duck. When you need another duck, when you need some more money that's going to hit your bank account for inflation, don't buy a packaged product and hope and dream from some salesperson, Johnny-come-lately or Johnnette-come-lately that says, "My annuity increases with inflation." No, it does not. The duck that needs to be put in line, remember you got all these ducks in a row, and you've said, "I need another duck in a row." How much? Is it $400 a month, $250 a month, or $1,000 a month? And then, from that answer, you visit The Annuity Man and run a reverse engineer quote. Meaning, how much would it take contractually to create $1,000 a month joint life, single life, etc.? And my team will help you with the structuring of that. So, if you want to leave a legacy, you can, but it's really, really that simple.

‌Roman Times

‌And when you look at contractual guarantee only annuities, you've commoditized those products, meaning you can shop for the highest contractual guarantee for your specific situation. Now, annuities were put on the planet. There's arguments here or there. In Roman times, the word annua, A-N-N-U-A, is I think Latin for the word payment. I didn't take Latin class, but that's as much Latin as I know, but I think that's all I should know. And annuities were first introduced as a pension payment to the dutiful Roman soldiers and their families for laying it on the line for the empire, and those were the original Single Premium Immediate Annuities. Those are still sold today in this country, and they have been sold in this country for hundreds of years as pension products.

‌The reason that that's important is we live in a world where, as you know, most of you have a job with an employer, and 91 or 92% of those employers do not offer pensions. They offer 401ks or accumulation type tax deferred vehicles so that you can accumulate. After that, when you retire, you have to convert that into some type of income-producing product, and that's when all the sales pitches come in, etc.

‌Two Questions

‌Just remember, there are two questions to ask when you're looking to either create an income duck or get another income duck: what do you want the money to contractually do? In this case, it's income. The second question is very important. When do you want those contractual guarantees or income to start? Understand that annuities, and there are many different types, and my team will help you if you go to my site, The Annuity Man. Just schedule a call with them. We're not hammers looking for nails; we're listening, but you need to determine how much income you're trying to achieve, and then we'll shop all carriers to see which carrier can guarantee that amount using the least amount of money.

‌Obviously, we look at the best carriers out there, such as Claims Paying Abilities, ratings, etc. That goes without saying, but when you're getting your income ducks in a row for retirement, it really comes down to how much money is going to pay the bills, meaning not only the bills that you have to pay, electrical and housing or cars or whatever but also lifestyle. Build that in as well, and then you have to revisit that ongoing because the only part of that income row of ducks you have, a true inflation annuity, is Social Security. That's going to increase.

‌Is That Enough for You?

‌The question you have to answer is, is that increase enough for you? It might be enough. It might be enough for you to never buy or never reverse engineer "to solve for an income gap". I guess it's called in this case, a duck gap. But I just want you to envision the mother duck and the baby ducks behind them, walking behind the mother in a single file. I guess that's where ducks in a row came from. I'm assuming. The mother duck is Social Security. I mean, that's the mother duck, right? That's what you're going to first start with. Okay, we're getting this in Social Security. Then, everything after that, pension payments, annuity type payments, bond payments, CD payments, Multi-Year Guarantee Annuity interest payments, and those types of things are the ducks behind them. So, you're getting them in a row and adding them all up for that monthly income stream.

‌I really like this: annuity ducks in a row and the mother duck. The mother duck is Social Security; after that, you fill in the baby ducks behind it. And the key, I think, with all of this is the majority of your income ducks in a row should probably be structured to pay as long as you're breathing. If you're married, your spouse is breathing, so there's a continuation of income without any changes in that income. That's very important to do. We can help you with those types of structuring. Also, with lifetime income annuities, we can structure it so that 100% of unused money goes to the listed beneficiaries, not the annuity company.

‌Annuity Types

‌Many people say, "Well, I don't want to buy an annuity because when I die, money goes, poof!" No, that's one of 40 plus ways to structure lifetime income, and there are four different types, annuity types, that provide lifetime income: Single Premium Immediate Annuities, Deferred Income Annuities, Qualified Longevity Annuity Contracts, and Income Riders that can be attached to a Deferred Annuity like an Index Variable Annuity. Those are all lifetime income products. Also, remember that you can use all account types, IRAs, non-IRAs, Roth IRAs, and all of those account types to purchase an annuity. Also, you're purchasing the annuity, the income duck for the lifetime income guarantee. So, the structure that you put it in, whether it's an IRA, non-IRA, or Roth IRA, all that's going to determine is the taxation of the money and the lifetime income that you're going to be receiving.

‌Wasn't this fun? We did the annuity income ducks. You'll always have that in your head, and you'll go to the bad chicken dinner seminar, turn to your spouse, and say, "Yeah, we got to get our income ducks in a row. We got to get our annuity income ducks in a row." And hopefully, we can help you with that. We represent pretty much every single carrier out there, and you can go to our site or use our calculators 24/7, 365. You can schedule a call with the best team on the planet that's going to really try to help. And we're going to listen to you, tell you if you don't need an annuity or tell you the type that might fit the best.

‌But man, that was fun. I don't know why that was fun. I like taking and correlating it because it makes sense when you do that. You are putting your income ducks in a row when you get to chapter two of your life, and when you're going to try to achieve that lifestyle that you've worked so hard for, which is money hitting the bank account, that's in essence, non-correlated to the markets. Meaning that if the market crashes, or if there's a black swan event, that income is going to continue uninterrupted and unchanged.

‌My name is Stan, The Annuity Man. That's Shootin' It Straight With Stan. I'll see you next time.

Never forget to live in reality, not the dream, with annuities and contractual guarantees! You can use our calculators, get all six of my books for free, and most importantly book a call with me so we can discuss what works best for your specific situation.