Episode #1: Welcome to Retirement IQ: Your Guide to a Successful Retirement

In the first episode of Retirement IQ Podcast, retirement wealth coach John Stregger reveals how to take control of your financial future and avoid “financial autopilot” in your 50s and 60s. Learn how to build your retirement blueprint, turn savings into reliable income, reduce taxes, and make smart choices about CPP, pensions, and estate planning. With 25+ years of experience, John shares proven retirement strategies, practical money tips, and inspiring stories to help you create financial freedom and live your best life in retirement.

To learn more visit www.freeretirementreport.ca

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Retirement IQ
• 0:19 Purpose of the Podcast
• 0:52 Target Audience and Their Needs
• 1:45 The Importance of Financial Planning
• 2:50 Key Questions for Retirement Planning
• 5:09 Lifestyle and Technical Aspects of Retirement
• 5:53 John's Background and Motivation
• 7:29 Closing Remarks

Transcript

Episode 1: Welcome to Retirement IQ: Your Guide to a Successful Retirement

John Stregger: 00:00 - 07:42

Hi everyone, welcome to the inaugural edition of Retirement IQ. This is a new podcast which is designed to help you thrive both before and during your retirement years. I'm your host, John Stregger, and I'm a retirement wealth coach who helps people approaching retirement not only plan, but execute the kind of retirement they only dream about. Since this is my first podcast, I thought I'd answer three crucial questions. Why have I decided to have a podcast? What do I hope to accomplish with it? And thirdly, and probably most importantly to you, what can you expect to get out of this and what are you going to learn from it? So why am I doing this? What do I hope to accomplish? I see a lot of people who are on, I call it financial autopilot, until around age 50. You know, they got busy lives, kids, mortgages, they're putting money into their retirement accounts, their pension plans, and then they hit age 50, and hey, their kids are on their way, they're launching, And they've got, you know, five or 10 years to go before they actually have to retire. And that means turning a big pile of money they've been saving into an income for them for the rest of their lives. I've had about 25 years worth of meetings, one-on-one with people, and I've seen a lot of situations, good and bad, right? You start to see patterns emerge, problems, dangers, successes, things that repeat themselves time and time again. And I've turned that last 25 years into a bit of a research project. by paying attention and capturing that information. So then I can bring that information forward to our client meetings with current clients. And this podcast is a way for me to share all of that information with you in the masses, as opposed to just one-on-one. I really want to pull the curtain back, so to speak, and let you, the listener, get some of the information that I've gleaned over the last 25 years. And really the purpose of the podcast is to help you make smart decisions with your money. I find it really exciting that I'll be able to share this information with the masses as opposed to one-on-one. Like, wouldn't it be great if we got a following of a hundred, a thousand, 10,000 people that listened to this podcast and were able to benefit My hope is that we generate a bit of a cult following to this podcast and anyone who is approaching retirement is going to want to learn and listen and get the information they need to get ready so that they can live their best life in retirement. I think that'd be pretty cool. So I've answered why I'm doing this and what I hope to accomplish, and that leads me to number three, why should you listen? So there's no shortage of information out there if you wanna go searching on the internet, but I find this demographic of just pre-retirement, age 50 to 60, we'll call it, It's a very specific demographic with specific problems. Gone are the days of working for a big company for 30 or 40 years and getting your gold watch and retiring and drawing a pension for the rest of your life. Now it's your responsibility to coordinate. Can a pension plan, old age security, and turning your savings into an income that's going to last as long as you do. There's so many variables to consider. Just, just think about, you know, how long am I going to live? How long do I have to make that income last? You know, what are markets going to do? Like, do I need to worry about stock markets, inflation? What, how is that going to impact my retirement? There's legacy planning. Do I want to leave my kids anything? Should I leave my kids anything? Uh, So you really need to have a plan in place to deal with all of these issues. And that will be a major underlying theme of this podcast. So we compare a financial plan to blueprints for a cottage. You know, you would never set out to build a cottage and not have a plan in place, a blueprint. And that's what a financial plan is. It's a blueprint for your retirement income and the rest of your life. It doesn't mean it doesn't change over time, but it sets in place a good foundation for your financial future. And you would never think to hire You would never think to build a cottage or a home without an architect or an engineer. And that's where we come in. We help people design a plan and execute that plan. With that planning thought process, we're going to help answer a whole bunch of questions. Typically, these questions are going to be the theme of an episode going forward. So, you know, I'm just thinking off the top of my head here. Number one, do I have enough money to retire? How do I invest my money? How do I reduce taxes? When should I take CPP? Are there options for CPP? We'll also cover off lifestyle issues related to retirement. It won't be all about the numbers. We'll also have guests on, people, maybe lawyers, accountants, that type of thing. The idea is that we want to be able to have information that is technical in nature, but relatable and understandable. And that's the goal of the podcast is to arm you with information so that you can have a successful, happy retirement life and not worry so much about the technicalities of it. I'd like to just cap off the show and the show by giving you a quick background of why I got into this business. When I was a young guy, about 20 years old, my dad started his second career in credit counseling. And credit counseling is for people that have made some financial mistakes and are on the brink of bankruptcy. And it astounded me when my dad would tell me stories about people, just regular hardworking people, deep in debt, and I couldn't understand how someone could get themselves into that situation. It really came down to literacy, not understanding how money worked. And around the same time, I read a book by David Chilton, and I've got the copy here. It's called The Wealthy Barber. And The Wealthy Barber is a book about thriving financially and how to get a good start in life. Between listening to my dad, you know, people not doing so well, and reading about how you can do so well, I knew from a young age that I wanted to share all of those experiences and the information that I had as a young guy. and basically go into the field of financial advising for people. And that's how I got my start in life. And that's something that has continued with me throughout my career, is basically learning and sharing information with people. And I hope this podcast continues in that vein. So I really wanna help people learn as much as they can so that they can have a successful retirement, and lifestyle going forward. We hope that you'll tune in, we hope that you'll share it with friends, and I hope I'll see you again. I'm John Stregger, and until we see you in episode two, bye for now.

Narrator: 07:53 - 08:10
The information provided in this podcast is general in nature and should not be relied upon as a substitute for advice in any specific situation. For specific situations, advice should be obtained from the appropriate legal, accounting, tax, or other professional advisors.