From Public Housing to Financial Peace with Jeffrey Panik - Episode 574

I think the biggest thing that at really any age, but more importantly when you're really looking to kind of put the pieces together, or I would call it a puzzle, really what you want to do is really take an inventory. Really before you can do anything, it's like kind of like triage. You need to know what's going on and what the person has. And in order to do that, you really have to get an understanding of what type of accounts there are, you know, what type of debt there is. What type of income is coming in, as well as just understanding what the family background is and dynamics.

What happens when a childhood shaped by financial hardship becomes the catalyst for a lifetime devoted to financial security? From Public Housing to Financial Peace reveals how one powerful life experience transformed into a mission to help others protect their families, their future, and their peace of mind. Welcome to Streams to Impact, brought to you by State Talker Capital. I'm your host, Dr. Allen. If you're a high-achieving professional who has spent decades mastering their craft, you may have discovered something surprising. Success in your career does not automatically translate into financial freedom. Many accomplished professionals continue exchanging time for money long after they've achieved financial success. But there is another path, one where your capital works as hard as you do, Creating multiple streams of passive income and opening the doors to greater freedom, greater purpose, and greater impact. If you would like to explore that path further, I invite you to claim your complimentary access to Beyond the Paycheck: The Financial Clarity Compass. It is my educational mini masterclass designed specifically for accomplished professionals who want their wealth working for them, and you can access this by going to www.

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Our guest today is Jeffrey Panek, Managing Director of Balanced Wealth Partners, with more than 25 years in financial services. He holds a Master of Science in Financial Planning and is a Certified Financial Planner. But Jeff's passion for this work began with a deeply personal experience. When he was an infant, his father passed away unexpectedly, leaving his mother to raise him alone with no life insurance and no financial safety net. Watching her, Preserve revealed just how critical financial planning is, not only for wealth, but for peace of mind. So today, that experience drives his mission to help families prepare, protect, and plan for the future. Jeff, welcome to Streams to Impact.

Thanks for having me today, Allen.

You bet. We're glad to have you with us. So, Jeff, your story begins with a deeply personal experience that shaped how you view financial security. So looking back, how did that early chapter of your life influence the way that you approach financial planning and the responsibility you feel towards families that you serve?

Yeah, I think the biggest piece that I've learned over the years is that you can't really generalize financial planning. And really, you have to look at each family or individual and kind of work for their circumstances and where they are in life. And everyone comes from really a different place. And it really is important to understand what their background is with money, especially if you have a couple that is coming together, regardless of where they are in life. You know, they have a lot of times they come from completely different money backgrounds with their families. And, you know, they say opposites attract. That's good for, I guess, romance, but not so good with the finances. And I think a lot of times it's just very difficult, whether it's your direct family, your parents, just to talk about money. And I think it's important to do that. The more comfortable you are with your family talking about it, the easier they are to be honest about when they make mistakes and be able to, you know, you can try to provide some feedback and even some examples in real life of things that went wrong on your end as well.

Yeah, I think that's very important. And most of our listeners being high-income professionals, I think it's very important for them because even though they have high incomes, they have been preparing for their professions for years and they get into their professions and they have to continue professional development and work long and hard hours and they just don't have time for thinking about finances even though they They typically have way above average incomes. So when thinking about these kinds of individuals, where should their financial planning actually begin? Most of them, they have traditional 401s and other Roth and RA accounts and oftentimes retirement plans other than that along with their employer, but they've not given a whole lot of planning outside of that. So where do they start? Where do you begin with individuals like that?

I think the biggest thing that at really any age, but more importantly, when you're really looking to kind of put the pieces together, I would call it a puzzle. Really what you want to do is really take an inventory. I call it a financial life inventory plan. Really, before you can do anything, it's like kind of like triage. You need to know what's going on and what the person has. And in order to do that, you really have to get an understanding of what type of accounts there are. You know, what type of debt there is, what type of income is coming in, because it can be variations in terms of the taxability of that, as well as just understanding what the family background is and dynamics, and really looking and moving forward from there. And, you know, whether it's in estate planning, one of the things that's often overlooked is just updating after you have a life event, or, you know, you may have done it 15 or 20 years ago when the kids were small, And then, you know, they're at the point now where they're grown up. And a lot of times you have, whether it's the, you know, the trustee, whether it's the agent, whoever it is in your plan, they might not even be alive anymore. And it's just really important to take a step back, you know, whether it's around New Year's time, everyone comes up with these new New Year's resolutions. I'm going to work better on my finances. I'm going to figure out how it all works together. The reality of it is it doesn't happen overnight. I view it as really a 6-month to 12-month process where you have to walk through and get an understanding of where all the pieces are, whether it's your insurance, as I mentioned, your income, your assets. They could be scattered about. It's almost like the longer that you are working and you have a work history, it's almost like a home. The longer you're there, the more stuff you accumulate. And so when you go to— when you start thinking about moving, it's best not to do that the day that you're thinking about moving. You know, you want to get the things together over time. Really, it's the same thing with retirement and financial planning.

Well, many professionals today are trying to balance a whole lot of different things. They're trying to save for their future, and still they're carrying Heavy mortgages, student loans, and other obligations. And even though the people that we work often have very high incomes, they have extremely high expenses.

Yeah.

So it comes in the door and goes out the other door. How should people think about balancing their debt repayment and balancing lifestyle expenditures And all of that along with long-term savings and investing.

It's kind of all over the board if you ask a lot of authors. Dave Ramsey thinks everything should be cash and you should have no debt. That's often easier said than done. A lot of times, it's easy to look back in the rearview mirror and say, well, maybe I should have went to community college or maybe I should have worked part-time while I was in school. But you have the loans now, student loans, you know, maybe I shouldn't have this, this type of debt. The reality is it's, it's really a matter of looking at what you have and working back from there. And really it's a matter of how can you take advantage of your income? You know, the first thing I always look at is the match. You know, does your employer have a match? You know, if you have your own plan, you want to take advantage of any match or what I would call like free money that's coming in. from your employer, or if you're the employer, you wanna obviously take advantage of it if you're allowing your employees to do it as well. Then you wanna really look at your high-interest debt. You wanna look to see if you have an emergency fund. You know, oftentimes people just forget about putting money in savings to the side, you know, usually 3 or 6 months of expenses. You know, that's one of the biggest issues that I see with people accumulating credit card debt and debt in general is, you know, they have a medical expense, they have a car expense, They have something that comes up out of the blue. They don't have the money sitting there in the rainy day fund. And so, they have to turn around and get debt. And so, it's just not the debt that you're accumulating, that principal amount of the debt, it's all the interest you're going to pay over time as well.

Well, of course, 2 of the biggest decisions that many people face is the issue of Social Security and Medicare. And timing on both of those can be critical. So, what are some of the Most common mistakes people make when they decide when to actually begin taking these benefits?

Yeah, so it's, you know, it's kind of like I would call it like a minefield. And, you know, the government, as much as they were set up to help you, in a lot of cases with Social Security and Medicare, it almost is like they're trying to do the opposite. You know, if you look at Medicare as an example, the obvious thing is, you know, you've— I always tell people the one thing to look at is look at how much you and your employer over your work history have paid into Social Security and Medicare. You can do that now if you look at your Social Security statement, because both numbers are on there. You know, if you're a high-income earner, the amount that you've put in, you and your employer put in Medicare over, say, 20 or 30 years, it is just incredible. And then to think that it's really not free for you when you're in retirement. And, you know, that's one of the biggest, I think, misnomers is that you can just at 65 go on Medicare and it's going to be less expensive than, say, what your group plan is. You know, that's, I think, one of the biggest things is making sure that you're fully informed before you leave your group plan, if you're still eligible and you're working for an employer, because once you leave, you can't typically go back on. And oftentimes there's this thing called IRMAA, which is a penalty for high earners that if you're not aware of can really get you. And so really, I always tell people, you know, if you, if you have a group plan, It's a great idea really to do a deep dive or have someone do it for you and really look and say, well, what is going to be the cost going off the plan? What is the benefit? And how much is it going to cost at the end of the day so you don't have any surprises? And, you know, on the Social Security side, you know, it's all over the place. There's some people that say, I'm going to take it when I can get it. Well, guess what? If you take it early and you're still working, if you have any sort of income that's a reasonable amount, you're not going to get anything. So. You know, it's really a matter of being realistic, you know, taking advantage if you have a couple, if you have one spouse that hasn't worked as an example, you want to make sure they claim the spousal benefit and get half the high earner's Social Security rather than not getting any at all. You know, there's certain things that Social Security just isn't going to help you with that you need to understand because it can save you and create income where there wasn't any before.

Yeah. Well, it used to be that Medicare was really quite good for retirees, but they have vulcanized it to the point that it's become more of a burden than an assistance, it seems like. So, and I suspect they'll continue to do that until it is useless.

Yeah.

So beyond the technical details of investing in retirement accounts, What does true financial peace of mind mean to you, and how do you help clients move toward that in their own lives?

I think being a resource, I think, for me is important, not just for the financial planning, the investments. If someone has a question about something, I can try to help them get the answer. One of the benefits to technology these days is you can go on Google and put in a financial topic and get 3 million hits. So there's a lot of information. It's matter of coursing through that and finding the thing and the information that's most appropriate for you. So I think that's really where I find value or I add value, whereas AI is more, this is what it is. It can't really think outside of kind of the box of looking at things. And really, it's a matter for individuals really to have someone look at, to try to help them along with the process. And even I understand I'm not an expert in everything. that I have people I partner with and work with that can try to help if there's an issue or a need. And, you know, it's, as I mentioned, things are only getting more complicated, whether it's Medicare, Social Security, estate planning, all these things. And the biggest thing I try to help people understand is you can't expect to do it in a weekend, and you both, if it's a couple, you both have to be on board. You know, you can't just have one person do all the heavy lifting and do everything because If something happens to that person, what happens then? You know, you have to have a— we call it like, you know, in a business you have business continuity. You have— you want to have someone there if something happens to you to continue the business, continue to grow, be successful. It's the same thing with your financial planning and your estate and your financial life. You want someone there that can carry on if you become disabled or have an issue.

Well, Jeff, today's conversation has been a powerful reminder that financial planning is about far more than just numbers. So it is about preparation, protection, and creating stability for the people that we love. So your journey from early hardship to a lifetime dedicated to helping families plan wisely beautifully illustrates how personal experiences can shape a mission that benefits so many people. So, for our listeners who would like to go deeper into Jeff's insight, he's offering a complimentary PDF of his latest book, Your Future Is Now, which provides practical guidance on planning for a secure financial future. So, Jeff, do you want to tell us where it is they can go to find that?

Sure. You could go to Jeffrey Panik. It's P-A-N-I-K. You can look my name up in a Google search and it will come up with my website. You can also go to my YouTube channel. It has the information in there as well. And it's just designed to be educational and informative and try to point out some of the traps of financial life that we deal with these days.

Thank you, Jeffrey. And for those of you listening who are high-achieving professionals looking to move beyond simply earning income to having your money work for you, I invite you To get your complimentary copy of Beyond Paycheck, the Financial Clarity Compass. It's my mini educational masterclass on developing multiple streams of passive income, and you can access it at www.go.stetalker.com/beyond-paycheck. Thank you for joining us today on Streams to Impact. If you enjoyed today's show, please like, share. And this is where we explore the intersection of purpose, prosperity, and meaningful impact. Until next time, keep building the life and the legacy that you were meant to create.

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