Common Sense Financial Podcast

In this episode, Brian Skrobonja goes over the three main retirement mindsets that could negatively impact your retirement plans.

He sheds light on what most retirees get wrong about retirement planning, why being confident doesn't eliminate investment risks, and what to consider when hiring a financial planner.

• Brian goes over three retirement mindsets that have the potential to derail even the best-laid retirement plans.
• He starts by explaining that there is more to the conversation around retirement than just having a permanent vacation.
• Retirement is not a destination; it's a transition into a new stage of life.
• The different mindsets you need when saving money and growing a nest egg versus spending and withdrawing money from your retirement accounts.
• Mindset #1 - The Idea That Annuities Are Bad.
  • For Brian, retirement is about having a steady stream of income you can rely on no matter what Wall Street throws your way.
  • Brian reveals that most retirees want consistency and predictability in retirement--they want to know exactly how much money they have coming in each month.
  • Annuities are designed specifically to deliver this predictability and remove guesswork out of producing income for retirement.
  • Remember, stock market risks are real and they don't disappear just because an investor is optimistic about what could potentially happen.
• Mindset #2 - The idea of the status quo of the stock market in retirement.
  • Some people believe that a well-diversified portfolio will predictably turn out enough profit to sustain them throughout retirement.
  • According to Brian, what is missing from this ideology is that the market doesn't go up in a straight line. If you experience a 50% loss, 50% in earnings will not get you back to even; you need 100%. And if you're making withdrawals, that only compounds the problem.
  • Brian reveals why the stock market is a great tool for wealth creation--but only if you allow the money to grow and aren't making withdrawals for income purposes.
• Mindset #3 - Fee anchoring.
  • What is a fee anchor? It's the amount someone has in their mind for what they should pay for financial related advice.
  • When considering a fee for an advisor, it's important to understand that it's less about the fee and more about what you're getting in return.
  • A fee is only an issue when there is a vacuum of value.
  • For Brian, if you try to get an advisor to cut their fees, the more experienced and valued advisors will not take you as a client.
  • Brian explains why finding the right advisor can be invaluable, especially when it comes to navigating complex financial products like annuities, private markets, or selling a business.
  • Fees are important and you should understand them, but Brian encourages people to not use them as the primary consideration for making a decision.

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Brian Skrobonja sits down with Phon Vilayoune to unpack buffered ETFs and income notes. Phon is the Founder and CEO of VETA Investment Partners, where they currently oversee over $5.5 billion in assets. They discuss the benefits of positioning your portfolio for growth and safety, how to protect your nest egg in volatile markets, and practical strategies for optimizing gains while limiting downside risk.

Tune in to hear professional insights on ETFs, income notes, and actionable frameworks for navigating today's complex market cycles.

• Phon explains how he entered the investing world and now helps oversee roughly $5.5B in assets.
• Phon highlights what trading during the 2008–09 crisis taught him about being positioned like Warren Buffett or Middle Eastern banks. In deep volatility, cash plus cash flow gives you the power to buy when everything is on sale.
• Why you want a Buffett-style portfolio in a downturn: Buffett held strong during bear markets and bought when others panicked.
• How to win more by losing less. Phon says risk management is the key. You never want to be a forced seller during a correction because you take a double hit: loss plus selling at the bottom.
• Phon and Brian break down buffered ETFs and how they're tied to S&P 500 options designed to provide a more predictable range of outcomes over 12 months. Think of it like investing with guardrails — you're participating but with intentional limits on downside.
• Learn what income notes are: Phon says it's basically converting equity exposure into monthly income. For example, instead of holding stocks outright, you buy a structured note designed to pay you steady monthly income while still giving some market participation. It's like blending investing and cash flow without fully being in the stock market.
• Phon on the future earnings potential of ETFs. He believes growth will continue, especially as aging demographics seek income and protection. BlackRock projects more than $600B in defined-outcome/Buffered ETFs in the coming years.
• Brian highlights that markets don't move straight up forever. We all intellectually understand cycles, but emotionally, we forget. That's why having a plan for downturns is essential.
• Phon shares a real-life ETF scenario and how, in 2002, a near-retirement couple protected their nest egg during intense volatility using defined outcome tools. They preserved their lifestyle when others were taking major hits.
• How to balance your portfolio for growth and safety. For Phon, the best thing you can do is to talk to a real human advisor. There's too much DIY noise; professional guidance helps you tune the right mix for your unique situation.
• Phon on what to ask your advisor: Ask how your portfolio would perform in a COVID-style year or another global-financial-crisis scenario. Then ask how it generates income and supports your goals. His favorite question: "Have you actually guided clients through a deep bear market?"
• Why working with a professional matters: Many strategies look great and work during bull markets. But the real test is whether they protect you when things are down.
• Phon explains that good portfolio design is about being structurally prepared before volatility hits. You want a position that holds through downturns—and ideally lets you buy when opportunities appear.
• Phon's parting advice to the audience: Go outside, walk your dog, and take real time away with family. Getting off screens and into nature helps you stay grounded. Investing is long-term—your life should be too.

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In this podcast episode, Brian shares his remarkable journey from his parents' middle-class immigrant background to achieving financial freedom through decades of learning and building businesses.

He recounts his early aspiration for an opulent lifestyle and the pivotal moment when he realized the importance of creating income-producing assets. Through content creation, including three books and the Common Sense Financial Podcast, Brian's financial wisdom and expertise have garnered recognition and awards, providing valuable insights into wealth, financial freedom, and the pursuit of life's true riches.

Join us as we explore Brian's wealth-building principles, the significance of faith, family, and relationships, and the pursuit of genuine financial freedom.

• It was over 30 years ago when Brian got started in business and he's spent this time building his knowledge while building teams and companies.
• Brian begins by telling the story of his parents and how they came over from Croatia and lived a middle-class life.
• His father worked evenings and weekends as a lab engineer while also running a business on the side. His work ethic greatly inspired Brian as he grew up.
• As a teen, he always dreamed of having expensive things, but his only model for getting that done involved trading time for money, which is exactly what he did throughout his early 20's. This led to him working harder to keep up with his increasingly expensive lifestyle.
• After doing it wrong for years, Brian had an epiphany where he realized he needed to create income-producing assets that would pay for his lifestyle.
• He set out to create a passive income stream to support his lifestyle and successfully accomplished it. That's when his focus for what he was really trying to do for his clients came into clarity.
• Brian began producing content back in 2010. And out of that came three books: Common Sense, Generational Planning, and Retirement Planning, which can all be found on Amazon.
• This led to the beginning of the Common Sense Financial Podcast, which has since been recognized by Forbes as a top 10 podcast by financial advisors. Brian also became a regular contributor for Kiplinger magazine locally in St. Louis. He's gone on to win numerous awards for his work.
• After 30 years of helping clients create the passive income they need to create real financial freedom, Brian regularly hears clients say that his process has really opened their eyes about how money works and how to think about wealth.
• In his personal life, Brian has been married to his wife Carrie for 30 years and has three kids, who have also grown up and had families of their own.
• Throughout their lives, Brian and his wife have taught their children two main things. First, most importantly, for them to pursue a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ and to live out their faith in their daily walk. Second to that, is to understand that a worthy pursuit in life is the things money can't buy: building relationships, investing, and creating memories and experiences with people that you love.
• A key lesson that took Brian a long time to figure out is that the pursuit of things never brings satisfaction.
• Real wealth is not found in things but in the freedom to live your life free from having to work for a paycheck or trade your time for money, which is another lesson he tries to impart to his kids as well as his clients.

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In this episode we talk about the importance of using key performance indicators beyond just investment performance to gauge the health of one's retirement plan.

There are five crucial data points that form the foundation of a successful retirement strategy: passive income, effective tax rate, cash flow ratio, banking capacity, and horizontal asset allocation. By focusing on these metrics, you can adopt a comprehensive approach to retirement planning that factors in various financial variables and bridges the gaps in your financial plan.

• Business owners use KPIs or key performance indicators to track and understand the health of their business and marketing efforts. Those planning for retirement should consider their retirement KPIs to help measure the health of their financial situation.
• People often make the mistake of substituting investment performance for more meaningful key performance indicators. ROI is not the only KPI you should be paying attention to.
• People often view their finances in silos and tend to make standalone decisions about what to do while leaving out other important variables concerning their situation, which can result in having gaps in their overall retirement plan design.
• For example, the stock market can go down, but that doesn't necessarily mean your plan should change. The flipside is also true: the market may be up, but that could mean you need to make adjustments.
• Knowing what KPIs to use and how to use them can help measure the health of your overall financial situation, not just track portfolio performance.
• A KPI is simply a collection of data points that helps provide a consistent method for measuring and monitoring the health of your retirement plan.
• In my experience, there are five key data points needed to measure the effectiveness of a retirement plan.
• The first is passive income.
  • Income is an obvious component and the central theme of a retirement plan.
  • Income is not growth of a share or unit of a particular investment. It is the income generated from the share or unit of an investment.
  • If there is a retirement income gap of $5,000 each month, the goal of the retirement plan is to not simply cash out investments each month or spend down savings to meet the goal. It is to create passive income sources that can consistently provide the cash flow.
  • Missing this point can be catastrophic to the longevity of a retirement plan.
• The second is the effective tax rate.
  • Tax rates in the United States of America are progressive. The more you make, the higher the marginal rate is on portions of your income. Marginal rates have their place when filing a return or making decisions about asset positioning.
  • The effective tax rate is a single rate that's calculated using the total taxes that are paid against the gross income. This percentage gives us a better overall understanding of the impact taxes are having on retirement income.
  • If the retirement income gap is $5,000 each month and the effective tax rate is 30%, we can determine the additional amount of income required to cover the tax liabilities.
  • The more tax mitigation techniques you incorporate into a retirement plan, the less pressure there is on your assets to generate additional income just to pay the tax.
• The third is cash flow ratio.
  • People often define cash flow too narrowly and often exclude things like taxes, retirement savings and health insurance premiums, which leaves gaps in understanding.
  • It is also important to know the ratio of income to bank payments, taxes, savings insurance, as well as fixed and variable expenses.
  • It's also important to know the earned income versus passive income ratio along with the number of different income sources you rely on to fund your lifestyle.
• The fourth is your banking capacity.
  • When it comes to asset allocation, there is often the out-of-the-box structure where assets are divided up between investments and bank accounts. This approach oversimplifies a more complex situation and overlooks the realities of life and how people actually use and spend money.
  • There are many factors to consider outside of just growing assets and covering emergencies, such as big ticket purchases and other family needs, that could benefit from incorporating a family bank into the financial plan.
  • A family bank, aka Build Banking, is a specially designed life insurance contract that enables a family to have banking capabilities within their own financial ecosystem without relying on an actual bank outside of their financial situation.
  • This piece is usually missing from most retirement plans.
• The fifth is horizontal asset allocation.
  • Most people think of diversification as a vertical landscape of public market investments such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds or ETFs, but that's the wrong idea.
  • Asset allocation is similar to gardening. It requires diversity in many different forms to help manage growth, produce income, minimize risk and mitigate taxes.
  • Adding things such as real estate businesses, private equity, life insurance, annuities, amongst other things, can provide characteristics and other elements of stability to help support a retirement plan.
• To develop a retirement plan, you must first identify the gaps in your existing situation, and then begin to work out on strategies to help fill those gaps. Having a way to measure passive income tax exposure, cashflow, asset allocation, and your baking capacity are the most important metrics to start with.

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In this episode on Certificates of Deposit (CDs) as investments, we talk about the nuanced decision-making involved in purchasing CDs and whether or not CDs are good investments, particularly in a rising interest rate environment, and we explain why interest rates are the only factor you need to consider.

Wealth creation isn't solely dependent on CD rates, and we need to consider the impact of inflation and interest rates to gain a comprehensive financial perspective. The episode also explores how government strategies to combat inflation by adjusting interest rates impact not only investors, but also shape the attractiveness of CDs as an investment option.

• In a rising interest rate environment, buying CDs may seem like a good idea but it depends on your needs and goals.
• Wealth isn't created by buying a CD based on a rate. It's created by understanding why the rate may not be all that important.
• Banks look at what is known as the federal funds rate, also known as a benchmark rate. This is the rate banks charge one another to borrow money overnight that's needed to maintain reserve requirements.
• Upstream in the decision making process is the Federal Open Market Committee or FOMC, who meet throughout the year to discuss and set monetary policy. Within these policies, rates are set and typically linked to inflation.
• When those rates are set, banks may adjust rates on loans, deposits and certificates of deposit. But just like any business, banks will adjust rates to compete in their market as they seek to cover their costs and maintain a profit.
• CDs specifically are an attractive tool for banks, because unlike a deposit account, CDs actually lock up customers with a maturity date, which gives banks better control of their cash flow. The higher rates draw in customers seeking to maximize their returns.
• Rates on CDs matter, but not as much when you factor in inflation and interest rates. If inflation is at 7% and interest rates are at 5%, the net is 2%. The same is true if inflation is at 0% and interest rates are at 2%. You have to look at both numbers to get a full picture.
• When you consider the gridlock within the housing market and the amount of debt our government holds, it's hard to believe rates can remain elevated over the long term. The government is desperately trying to combat inflation by raising rates.
• These higher rates not only impact consumers, but they also impact the government. According to the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, in June of 2023, they projected that annual net interest costs on the federal debt would total $663 billion in 2023 and almost double over the next decade. Interest payments would total around $71 trillion over the next 30 years, taking up to 35% of all federal revenue by 2053.
• These numbers are impacted by interest rates and with lower rates come lower interest payments, so the government has reasons to see rates lower than they currently are.
• The question is: Does it make sense to lock in CD rates while rates are high? It depends. If you have money sitting in a bank account that you don't need and the CD rate is offering a higher rate than your savings, then it might be a good option.
• A good idea is to compare CD rates to other options like fixed annuities and money markets since they share some similarities but also have a few key differences that could make one choice better for your situation.
• Certificates of Deposit are offered by banks as a savings account that offers a fixed interest rate over a specified period of time, ranging from one month up to five years. They carry penalties if funds are removed before maturity, and they're FDIC insured up to $250,000.
• Fixed Rate annuities are issued by insurance companies and are financial products that offer a fixed interest rate over a specified period of time. Early withdrawals can incur a penalty, and interest earnings are tax deferred until you start taking distributions. The guarantees are backed by the claims paying ability of the insurance company and are insured by what is known as the State Guarantee Association.
• Money markets are funds issued by financial institutions that are backed by highly liquid short maturity investments. Maturities usually range from overnight to just under a year, and assets can be quickly converted to cash with minimal loss of value. They are generally considered more risky than a bank, CD or insurance company annuity, and the underlying investments include such things as treasury bills, commercial paper and CDs.
• While CDs offer the safety of fixed returns, they are not devoid of risks and limitations. It's essential to understand both the micro and macro economic factors that affect CD rates before diving in.

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