Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 This is Annuity Straight Talk. Since 2008, your host Brian Anderson, has helped clients nationwide navigate the complex market for annuities With Brian's assistance, hundreds of clients have achieved a profitable and secure retirement. I would know because Brian has answered many of my questions concerning annuities and retirement planning so that you can benefit as well. Let's get started. Here's Brian.
Speaker 2 00:00:48 Hello and welcome everyone to the Annuity Straight Talk podcast episode number seven and happy new year to everyone. The first podcast episode of the year. I mentioned a three part series toward the end of last year. I was gonna get to it, I will get to it, but sometimes things pop up that are worth talking about and as everybody uh, gets into their New Year's resolutions, trying to lose the holiday weight and getting back into the swing of things, figure, we just tell some stories, talks about something that, uh, has affected us all today. I've got annuities and inclement weather. Now a lot of us are coming off of kind of a record cold snap no matter where you come from in the country. And it's, it's funny, you know, a lot of people want to talk about the weather. I get people calling from Florida and Texas, Hey, you like the winter up there?
Speaker 2 00:01:30 But I think it just about everybody got a taste of it. So on Christmas, I'm a Miami Dolphins fan. Long story. But I've always liked him. It's been a tough road ahoe because there haven't been good since I've been a fan for about the past 30 years. But I was watching the game and the announcers guys calling the game said the forecast high in Miami was only 42 degrees for the day. Now Christmas day here, I would've taken that we were frozen solid, but Miami's subtropical tropical dependent of definition, that's pretty dang cold down there. So, uh, lots of people reached out to ask how I was handling it kind of gave me an idea to just, just tell a few stories and kind of relate it to what I'm doing here as well. So I know sometimes you look at these titles and kinda roll your eyes, oh, how the heck is he gonna tie this in?
Speaker 2 00:02:13 But we'll see if I can do it. You be the judge. Okay, so if this one's got a newsletter, so you can go read it if you want. There's gonna be a couple more stories here, so that's why I'm in the email probably to encourage you to, to look at both of 'em or go to this one just because uh, you're gonna get everything in the newsletter plus a little bit more. But yeah, so around Christmas time and up until this point, temperatures were well below normal in Montana, but we kind of come to expect it. It's gonna happen to us so we're prepared for it. Houses are built with extra insulation. Turn the heat up a little bit. They got heavier beams and trusses to hold handle snow loads. Water pipes are buried 3, 4, 5 or six feet below the surface and they all run into the center of the house and on the inside walls.
Speaker 2 00:02:56 So it's not, they're not exposed to coal air. Now I talked to Pat and Stacy in Texas. Hello Pat and Stacy love you guys and they don't have any of that. So in Texas they're like, well our water pipes are only 18 inches deep and it's easier to run the pipes on the outside of the house and all these little things. And now it's expensive to put all the extra insulation and all that things with for things they don't really need. So when they hit a low of 16 degrees, gave 'em a whole different set of things to deal something that wouldn't bother us here, bothered them there. Texas isn't used to it consistently so that it's not to put all that extra stuff into your home spend. The extra money isn't necessary. But here it's required. So this fall and then if anybody was watching the podcast and say October or so, man, we had a beautiful fall.
Speaker 2 00:03:39 Warm weather, sunny days, gorgeous. Even the leaves didn't turn colors till about two weeks later than normal. When stuff like that happens, we pay for it. Winter came fast and hit hard. Let's see, we had single digit temperatures, solid snow storms. I had a tough drive to Kansas in early November. The cold reached that far south then because even when it got to Kansas, and normally I like to go there, it's an extension of fall and it's sunny or weather usually in the sixties, sometimes seventies, but it got, it was that far south that I didn't get really a break from it. So, and then things only got worse the further I came north on the return trip, get through Colorado, Wyoming, and then I get, it's like frozen tundra <laugh> after I got home. It stayed that way for about a week, but then it warmed up a little bit and when that happens we get a bunch of snow and it and it melts.
Speaker 2 00:04:26 That sets things up for being even worse. If the ground's frozen when the snow melts, the water doesn't absorb into the frozen grounds, it runs across roads, driveways, parking lots, uh, puddles up makes driving even more difficult. That makes it easy to spot the people that moved here from California cuz they're not used to doing it. I'm used to the freeze thaw cycle around here, but then again, like it kind of went in and out of it. And then we had a little bit of rain before a large snowstorm in the serious cold front and that's when people started asking about it. That moved in right before Christmas. A friend of mine that doesn't live too far, about 45 minutes down the road recorded a low temperature of 39 degrees below zero. Eastern Montana was even worse. I think there were 50 below. And up here when that happens, that's when we zip our coats all the way to the top right for a 10.
Speaker 2 00:05:11 Like it was like driving on the roads was like driving on a block of ice. You had frozen roads with snow on top of it. Tire tracks, cars like will pack it down, the plows don't get through right away or sometimes it keeps snowing throughout the day and so the plows will take trips through. But in between you got cars, packing snow on top of ice makes for a real stressful trip to the grocery store. And I'm explaining this, not that it's hard for me to deal with, but slow it down a little bit and we're used to it. We know what, you know what to identify now on my truck I've got tire chains, a tow rope and I got power tools.
Speaker 2 00:05:47 I carry all that stuff because I prefer to be prepared to help rather than risk being stuck waiting for help. I can get myself outta just about any situation. In fact, early in December when I got back from Kansas, I had to take my horses to get some shoes pulled off of 'em for the winter. I got my trailer stuck cuz I slid off this little hill backwards going slow in residential area there was nobody around to help. So it was quite a trick to get the chains hooked up or chains on the truck when it can't move, if you know what that's like, but I was able to do it. I look around, there's nobody, you know, I could call a tow truck and then it costs even more money, pain in the butt and then the guy looks, looks at me like I'm a weenie.
Speaker 2 00:06:27 Like, what? I thought you grew up here, you should deal with this. Right? It costs extra money that a lot of people don't necessarily spend, but it's the type of insurance that allows me to confidently travel when everyone else is told to stay off the roads. Now to this point this year I've pulled three people outta ditches because of that. So I stop and help. I haven't had to change any tires with the power tools yet, but if it comes to that, I will be able to help someone. Uh, the point is you don't wanna be stuck out in the cold weather. Most people who live in the southern states don't have to prepare for heavy snow loads and freezing pipes, tire chains and tow ropes might never get used. I mean, what use would a person from Texas have for a winter coat? Yes, geographically speaking, there are lots of different things we should do to prepare for inclement weather.
Speaker 2 00:07:13 Even this cold front reach more people than normal, even though it did, it's still a safe bet to move south to avoid the hassle it'll hit. But it doesn't happen as often. And I remember a couple years ago, a big cold front went through Texas, they lost power for Pat and Stacy said they lost power for five days. They don't have insulation. Maybe some pipes froze. It's a, it's a really raw deal. And people up here were saying, oh man, what a bunch of weenies. They should just deal with it. And I'm like, wait a second, they're not set up for this. And I talked to a couple people down there that says, you know, it's funny, it's like sending my kids to school. We don't have winter boots, we don't have winter coats. It's, it's always 65 or 70 here in the, in the wintertime.
Speaker 2 00:07:53 And so it was just enough of a shock to them being stuck without preparation. And when one of those things comes, it creates a real hardship. So we have winter coats and we have a different setup here, so it's a little different. I'm gonna go dive off and here's a story about why I carry power tools in my truck and this also has to do with winter. So I went hunting with some buddies about five years ago and a lot of the places that we go hunting are get off the pavement. You could drive 20, 30, 40 miles off of the pavement on a dirt road to get as far back as you can. Then we hop on the horses and mules and we go even deeper. So I'm towing my trailer on this remote mountain road that was really rocky and kind of nasty. It was September and we were getting an early snowstorm where we were at, we're pretty high in elevation.
Speaker 2 00:08:39 So I remember getting to where we were going. We got out of the truck and we had probably six to eight inches of really slushy wet snow. It hadn't been cold enough that the ground was frozen and underneath the snow was a few inches of mud. So it was really sloppy and really, really gross weather. We look back and notice that one of the tires on the horse trailer was flat. So I've got a little ramp, it's a dual axle, I've got a little ramp. You can drive the good tire up onto the ramp. You don't have to jack it up, but you know, we had four large animals in there at the time. And so I drove it up onto the ramp, but I'm sitting there with a tire iron cranking all the lug nuts off and changing the tire took me about 20, 25 minutes.
Speaker 2 00:09:21 When I got done, my hands were frozen and locked in place and covered in mud and slushed. This was freezing into my hands. It was awful. Okay? And from that moment on, I, I told myself I'm getting an impact drill and a set of really good sockets. I'm gonna do that sucker in three minutes instead of 30 and I'm never ever gonna go without it in my truck. So that's why I carry 'em because that was a painful experience for me. And to be truly prepared, I had to add that expense to my trips, to my travels. On another note, one more story just cuz everybody likes stories. So I, I figured I had thought of everything now I think two years after that I had my buddy from Pennsylvania guess told you about Spud and his dad were driving up in the same area, a different road and getting in a deeper and deeper snow.
Speaker 2 00:10:10 I hadn't chained up yet, so I stopped kind of a precaution and I stopped to put my chains on. Well, a few minutes into me doing that job, a truck came up behind me also pulling a horse trailer. And I noticed that he had a plow on the front of his truck. And so instead of worrying about it and he came up to check on me, he said, Hey, you all right? I said, yeah, I'm just getting my chains on. And I said, did you chain up back there? He is like, no, I haven't even chained up yet cuz I got the plow a big one, like a wedge plow, just like moving it outta the way. It was crazy. And I looked at it as like, dang it. And spu right off the bat, just quick as whip cuz he's he'll send a zinger at me.
Speaker 2 00:10:47 He said, well I guess you didn't think of everything <laugh>. I haven't put the plow in my truck yet, but that's a different story. So, okay, geographically we have different d things we have to deal with weather-wise, you know, I mean a lot of people around here don't even have air conditioning. You know, open your windows at night, close 'em in the day, draw the shades and you can usually get bi dependent on your stuff. But we all got in common as a need to protect ourselves from inclement financial conditions. I spend money to ensure my comfort and cold weather and I spend money to ensure my comfort during financial storms as well. Emergency savings and life insurance at my age and stuff like long-term care, medical supplements at your age. This is not an all-inclusive list, all right? But the idea is to save money in the future, to save time or to create financial peace, you have to have preparation and you've all done that.
Speaker 2 00:11:34 That's why you're here. You're here to talk about what you do with it. Now, most of you anyway. But the reality is it all costs money except for one thing. Annuities to start with. Buying an annuity is just shifting assets from one place to a safer place. So throughout the podcast and newsletter over the years, I've debunked the, the annuity myths of fees, liquidity and growth. So it makes sense for those who wanna sleep well during financially hard times. The debate is over, and I don't wanna argument, but I'll explain it to anyone who does not understand that point. Things you spend money on to preserve comfort are a luxury. And that includes annuities. But annuities don't really cost anything. Asking me if I can handle the cold is like asking one of my clients whether they worry about the stock market and economy, we are all prepared for it and I've made sure of that.
Speaker 2 00:12:22 You wanna be added to the list, you gimme a call, we talk about the most efficient way to do that. Okay? So I want to welcome everybody to the new year. I would love some feedback and some comments on this and any of my other stuff. It allows me to kind of sharpen my blades and branch out into different subjects or offer clarification. You wanna talk about any of these things or you have something to add. That's why I'm here. You can schedule a call on the top right corner of any page on annuity, straight talk dot, gom, or uh, schedule a call 804 3 8 5 1 2 1. So I wanna say thank you to everyone who's been with me. We're gonna make it even better this year. We're gonna have guests, we're gonna have new topics, we're going to try to cover everything, answer all the questions, and that's what I'm here to do. Call me if you want me to help. So anyway, everybody have a great day. I will see you next week with a new episode and, uh, thank you again. Okay, bye.
Speaker 1 00:13:24 You have been listening to annuity talk. The is for information and educational purposes not represent tax, legal or investment advice. The views expressed by guests on this program are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views partners. No information presented today should be acted upon its professional. Its important that you all insurance disclosures carefully before purchase decision. GS based insurance.
