Announcer 0:02
Welcome to dad cents a podcast for folks looking to grow their financial future. This podcast is hosted by Jason Fuchs, a dad, a husband and managing director of sage path financial advisors. Jason's goal is to help you grow your financial future, the right way. Now, your host, Jason Fuchs.
Jason Fuchs 0:26
Greetings everyone if you're new here, I'm Jason Fuchs, married to Amber's father to a two year old, almost three year old girl jewel. I'm also the managing director of sage path financial advisors. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Dad sense is a show for family men and women. And we're all about family fun and finance. on this show. You're going to hear unscripted conversations with folks who are committed to succeeding in business and staying financially healthy. Joining me is special guests, the podcasting guru, Gary Spurgeon, welcome to the show, Gary, welcome. Thanks for having me, Jason. Appreciate it. It's our pleasure. So happy to have you here. Now, Gary, I've been doing this podcast for how long now? Gosh, it's got to be well over a year. well over a year. Yeah. About a year and a half. almost two years. Yeah, actually. We got I start doing COVID a week before COVID hit. That's right. Coronavirus and cupcakes. That's the first episode and you came in.
Gary Spurgeon 1:23
And you came in early to you came we did you kind of did the test we kind of looked at was this the right fit for you? Yeah,
Jason Fuchs 1:29
yeah. And after the first two episodes, I started going to the closet because that's when everything started getting shut down. But that sense has grown tremendously over that year, I received several questions over the year or so with our audience members asking how do I start my own podcast? What can I do? And that's what you're going to help us with today. You're here to help our audience start their own podcast, right?
Gary Spurgeon 1:55
Whatever I could do to help people, you know, in this jet in this journey, as I call it, yeah,
Jason Fuchs 1:59
ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna introduce Gary soon. But Gary, did you know that making quote unquote, too much money can be a problem when making your IRA contributions? I did not know that. Okay, well, yeah, if you make too much money, again, quote, unquote, the IRS will not allow you to contribute to a Roth IRA. But there's a neat strategy called a backdoor Roth IRA. It can legally get you around that limitation. And that's what we're going to cover today in the q&a portion of the show. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have questions, send them to Jay Fuchs at Sage path FA Comm. I'll leave that email in the description of the podcast. I'd like to take a moment now introduce our guests, Gary Spurgeon. Gary is a proven leader with over 40 years of experience growing people culture, revenues, ratings, and profitability in the radio broadcast industry. He's worked at every level in radio, and I won't get into the details because it's a lot to list. We'll be here all day. But Ladies and gentlemen, trust me when I say every level, Gary success has led him to studio podcast suites, the company he owns and where I record AdSense. Gary thinks the biggest problems for most podcasters are terrible sound quality, the lack of editing and no production value. And I think you got something there, Gary. Many podcasts are sound like they're recording from their bedroom or home office. And there tends to be quite a lot of distracting background noise. So Gary's goal was to raise the bar when it came to sound quality and production value. And that's where studio podcast suites comes in. Gary has been married for 38 years. That's incredible. He and his wife Julie have two dogs. And ladies and gentlemen, Gary, not only a podcasting guru, he's a magician. Yes, right. Welcome to the show. Gary, thank you so much for being here. Thanks
Gary Spurgeon 3:55
for having me. Jason. Yeah, a lot of folks don't know that. I'm a magician.
Jason Fuchs 3:58
I know. And I want to know more. Tell us about that.
Gary Spurgeon 4:00
Well, you know, it's interesting. I actually did it professionally for two years, was a kid and you know, I'm in grade school and I see this kid do magic on the, you know, on the video screen, you know, when I was growing up, we just had a TV in the room and they do it once in a while and they bring a kid in and or somebody on TV. They're in our interconnect. And I saw this kid i thought was pretty interesting. So I went out and got my first little magic kit and I did it all on my own. And then it just kept growing and growing and growing to the point where I actually had a complete stage routine where I actually built Yeah, I had big apparatus. I had two birds. I had rabbits I had everything.
Jason Fuchs 4:36
Wow. But yeah, it's a major operation for I mean, I'm of that age, you know, I
Gary Spurgeon 4:40
was 16 till about 19 I was doing that but then it got a little laborious because there's so much equipment and I didn't have a big Yeah, so I really started getting into at around 15 close up magic and that's what I specialized in then. Okay, and then one thing led to another I moved to New Jersey and broadcasting and then I decided to also do some weekend and weekday gigs at some of the hotels and I got booked for two years and in New Jersey Really? Yeah. Although impressive. Yeah. And I was working to club Wednesdays and Thursday nights. And I was Yeah, it was a very interesting time. But I did professionally, I was so blessed to meet some of the most amazing magicians doing close up magic. And, you know, I'm still doing it. It's something I do for fun. And instead of me, yeah, I only it's entertainment.
Jason Fuchs 5:23
I've got a couple clients who are magicians. One is actually really into it. He goes around to schools in the Virginia area. And he educates the students about magic. Sadly, that's been placed on hold, because COVID and then things started opening up and now they're shutting that back down. But you know, he's really into it. And then I have a friend through Kiwanis an older gentleman, and he's been doing magic for probably about 30 years, he actually has a show and same thing, he goes into the schools helps the kids with the routines and whatnot. So once, maybe twice a year, again, up in Northern Virginia, they put on a magic show these kids and him and the kids run the entire show. And I gotta tell you, it's not it's not the low budget that you would think in high school. I mean, these kids really do a great job, the production value is fantastic. And the tricks are pretty in depth. Well, you are here to help our listeners understand how they can start their very own podcast and I think it's neat that you'll cover the challenges they might face. So ladies and gentlemen, if you've already started your podcast, stick around because Gary's gonna cover some, some really neat stuff. That's okay with you, Gary, let's get into it.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. So talk to us about your podcasting. You're gonna get into kind of the topic, but you are a podcaster. Right?
Gary Spurgeon 6:43
I did two of them. Actually. I did a golf podcast because my buddy and I are avid golfers, and we just love it. And it was called Gary and Gary on golf.
I love the title. Yeah, it was really yeah, it was really fun. And then I did another one for a while during the COVID. Just when it started, I wanted to give back to the community here in Jacksonville. Love that. So I just put the word out that a look at any small business owner, but like to come in, and it was all new to everybody. So it was a 12 minute podcast, talking to local podcast or local businesses about, Hey, tell us about your business. And then right now we're in the COVID time, what are you doing, the audience wants to take away, tell them something that that they can do today to help their business in this time to get through it. And really, it really became amazingly popular and just 12 short weeks a great podcast. Yeah, enjoyed it. Thank you. And are you thinking about starting that back up again? Yeah. Are we giving away too much? No, no, I'm really considerably consider doing that. It's actually been a lot of requests for it. So I just might just bring that back, you know, here in the next few months. That's fantastic. Well, congratulations, Gary, I'd like you to share with our listeners how they can start their very own podcast. And I think what you'll do is you'll cover challenges they might face and how to solve them, right? Yeah, we're gonna kind of approach it from a couple different angles for not only folks who currently have a podcast, but also folks who are thinking about getting into the podcast. And there's a lot of I mean, Jason, you know, you and I can kind of relate back and forth because you started your podcast, and we kind of took you through the journey as well. Oh, yeah. And I think the first thing that people don't realize, and what you're very good at is planning and preparation. And that's the most important thing that folks have to realize. You have to plan and prepare these things. But hey, since
so yeah, so one of the things you got to realize is when you go on the internet and say, hey, I want to start a podcast. That's what almost everybody does, because what a great resource. And there's so much information very overwhelming. And that is the problem. I think you just said it. I get everybody coming in here. And they'd say, I'm so overwhelmed. First they see the mic. What microphone do I buy? Oh, yeah. And there's hundreds of them out there. What equipment do I record? and What software do I use to record in that software? How do I process my audio? I'm just going through Where do I record? Where do I record right? And then then of course, after you record it, then what I need to get my podcast out there? Oh, wait a minute, we forgot about how do I get my podcast out there? Yeah. Do I know editing? I don't know a lot of folks don't know how to edit. And once they realize there's all this work around a podcast. It makes some people very hesitant to get into the game. Shut it down. Yeah. And I mean, right now, from a statistical standpoint, there's 850,000 podcasts out there. Wow. on a monthly basis monthly, actually, Apple says is 1.3 million, but there's 850 active right now. Wow. But we'll put this in perspective how, how really, that is not as many as you really could be. Because if we look at YouTube channels, there are 32 million YouTube channels. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. And there's only 850,000 podcasts and podcasts is a council. Yeah, the podcast is we're just at the genesis of where podcasting is going right now. But again, getting back to it, there's a lot of questions folks have and we'll go back to it like as simple as The artwork to start a podcast, people don't realize you need artwork. Oh, yeah. And just recently, literally within the last 30 days, there has been a little change in what size that that that artwork has to be. So traditionally it was between 14 120 500 pixels, right? All of a sudden, you need 3000 pixels, because Apple won't let your podcast artwork up there now. Oh, yes. Welcome. Now, show your pod. So you have to design art. So you need a piece of artwork, and you need a piece of audio for your very first podcast to get distributed. Got it. Okay, but then again, again, so what microphones are going to use? Let's go start there. There's condensers. And there's there's dynamic microphones, which ones you're going to use? And what is the difference? And we're using dynamic microphones right now, but condensers are fine, but you've got to unlearn where you're going to be using that. You know, I tell folks, if you're gonna have a condenser microphone, you're going to record at home, just go in your closet and shut the door. Oh,
Jason Fuchs 10:54
yeah. I've been there. During COVID.
Gary Spurgeon 10:59
Yeah, so you know, the sound control is very, very important. But I think that's the biggest challenge. And people have got to realize one of the biggest challenges is listen ability. So one of the things that's going on right now is if you listen to a bad piece of audio, let's say you have a song and you're listened to when you sounds bad, you're just going to turn it off. Mm hmm. The same thing is going on with podcasting today. So what what I've tried to teach people as they come into the studio, or coach them or guide them through this process is let's get a good quality product. Okay, the best way I can describe our studios is we provide every part of the service that you need, come into your content and leave, you've let us focus on everything else. And that's going to be the equipment that's going to be how to get the podcast up on their directories. Everything from A to Z, the editing. So that's all essential part of the entertainment value of your podcast, but also the listen ability of your pod. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that's important. Yeah. And then I think as we go down the path here a little bit, you got to record your first podcast, and we've got to edit the podcast. And then you got to get it distributed. And I think that's the big question a lot of folks have and they get Miss misguided by that. How do I get up on Apple? How do I get up on Spotify? Oh, yeah. And really,
Jason Fuchs 12:09
there's so many outlets for podcasting. Nowadays.
Gary Spurgeon 12:12
directories are called I think directories. Yeah, I think I just read that there are over 50 directories. That's incredible. So the average person who doesn't know will take their RSS feed, and then they're going to go to each one of those individually and try to plug them in individually. Yeah. And that just takes too long. That's why you need a hosting site. And they're very affordable. These hosting sites. I mean, I use buzzsprout. I use bread sprout, too. Yeah. And it's just not a plug for them. But there's so many out there, but their
Jason Fuchs 12:36
ease of use, and buzzsprout is local to Jacksonville. Correct, right? Yeah,
Gary Spurgeon 12:39
they're actually a company called hire pixel. That's the name of the parent company right here in Jackson. Yeah.
Jason Fuchs 12:43
Real nice, guys. I mean, in girls, of course.
Gary Spurgeon 12:45
Yeah. So I think that's how we're gonna get distributed. And the most two most important ones are apple and Spotify, people have to realize that because right now it's still around 50% of maybe 50 to 60% of the people who search for podcasts are searching on those two mediums still today. So those two are critical to get get active.
Jason Fuchs 13:03
On Yeah, so we get about probably 55 to 60%, from Apple podcasts. So all our apple listeners, thank you. We appreciate you tuning in. Yeah, so
Gary Spurgeon 13:13
that so there is the whole entire product process of podcasting from A to Z. And then once you get your first audio down, we've got uploaded to buzzsprout. And then it gets distributed out there. And then from there, I guess the big question is a lot of folks want is how do I monetize? How am I going to make money with this thing? And when I sit down with somebody, the first question I say to them is what are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish? If you're a business and you just want to create credibility, and let's do that that's what you're doing? You want to get lots of downloads and then you you want to generate revenue, but you can but it's gonna take time. Yep. patients, patients, you know, I everybody comes in here and they all bring up Joe Rogan. Everybody else? Of course, yeah, you know, $220 million dollar agreement on Spotify is insane. How can I do that? Well, you got to go back 20 years with Joe Rogan, how he started his career. Oh, yeah. And I think you folks don't realize it. It's a journey of this podcast, and it's a journey. One of the statistics I'll give you an all asking, you may know this, you may not so the average podcaster. How many episodes do they do before they start podcasting
Jason Fuchs 14:15
episodes? shows, I would say 377. Wow. And
Gary Spurgeon 14:21
that's what the average and I find the very similar here in my studio, like, you are a very you and my handful of what I call my regular customers. I've made a commitment tool, but you're using it for a 360 experience. And I think that's what I talk to people what are you trying to accomplish with your podcast? So there's so much going on in the world of podcasting, and there's so much time I mean, that's the challenge of broadcast radio is happening now. Time spent listening is really being reduced because of podcasts. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And how people are listening and consuming podcasts. 56% or 50% of the listenership i think is is done at home right now while they're
Jason Fuchs 14:57
doing chores. Okay, well, that makes sense. Yeah, multitask. Getting right? Yeah.
Gary Spurgeon 15:01
20 25% is in the car right now. And they're driving. Okay. Yeah. And the rest is other weather. I don't know where other is. But yeah, but yeah. So what is what is the goal of your podcasts? What are you trying to accomplish? What do you want out of it? If people come in, you're just a hobbyist I got a guy comes in or does a hip hop podcast news, and it is amazing. Fun. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. And he does does a great job on it. But I have corporations coming in here and have internal podcasts. You know, Johnson and Johnson vision? Oh, yeah. 50,000 a podcast. Yeah. And what they do is theirs is just for their their president and their internal management team to talk to their employees. And the only way they can access this as an eternal is under their servers.
Jason Fuchs 15:41
Yeah, right. I have a couple clients have told me about it. It's pretty neat. Yeah. And
Gary Spurgeon 15:45
I love the idea. Yeah, what happens to think about instead of that, getting that email from your president every quarter,
Jason Fuchs 15:51
or that, that nice video message.
Gary Spurgeon 15:55
And now think about it, he can bring it he or she can come in, bring a you know, bring one of their employees and just have a general conversation and get to know the, you know, the president of the company. So there's a lot of dynamics that you can do with the podcast. Yeah, that's so neat. The whole idea everyone is I want people to have fun. And that's what it should be, like work. But you know, I have to tell you, there's time involved to make it done. Do it right. And that's when I think a lot of folks don't get
Jason Fuchs 16:17
up. It's, you know, turn on the mic talk. And it's a success. There. It is a journey, like you said, but
Gary Spurgeon 16:21
you know, the challenge is, is to keep that positivity, positivity and that energy going. And knowing that that's what you want to do continue to do this, I have actually two, maybe three podcasters that have come in here. And they said, This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Wow. And that is a, and I said, Well, then this is what you're going to have to do. And they're gonna have to learn getting behind the microphone. It's my been my career, right? I haven't been behind the microphone I started a little bit about. I started my career for five years on the radio, but then I moved over into the management side. But I think the thing is, is this, those folks that you hear every day behind the microphone on radio, and television, these folks make it their career. And there's a lot of training and development that goes on. But again, I'm going to kick you I must have said this already a dozen times. But you're a great example, if I go back to your very first podcast, and I listened to my favorite episode. But I listen, where you've gone and where you're at today, you can see the development of just human, but you have that passion.
Jason Fuchs 17:19
And I go back and look at my notes, and I look at the layout of the episodes back then is nothing like what we're doing now. And that's the fun of podcasting is you kind of grow and you let it evolve naturally organically. And there's something really neat and really, apparently entertaining because
Gary Spurgeon 17:35
we're listening. Well, not only that, it's just like being consistent also is gonna get a lot more people listening that it just goes on top of each other. Maybe I'll ask the question to you, you've asked me what it takes to start a great podcast. I mean, you've been doing yours for almost two years, what have you found the biggest challenge,
Jason Fuchs 17:55
just grit, you got to stay committed, you know, I told myself, I was gonna do it for 12 months, and I wasn't going to stop until 12 months past. And if I got to 12 months, no one was listening, I was gonna stop. But I got to 12 months and found not only were people listening, but it was just growing tremendously. So you know, people were enjoying the content. And that drove me to keep going, keep going.
Gary Spurgeon 18:18
Well, one thing about your podcasts in particular is how you've grown the content and the structure of your podcast. Well, yeah. And that's the quite because you knowing and what you've told me is that you've asked your listeners what they like, and oh,
Jason Fuchs 18:30
exactly. I do this because I love it. But I'm not here to talk to you all, ladies and gentlemen about what I think you should hear about. I mean, I'm here to talk about relevant topics you all enjoy. And so many people lately have enjoyed the interviews that I've been doing with local, you know, entrepreneurs in the community. And that's one of the things I enjoyed doing. So it works out because I love connecting with people and my audience loves hearing about their stories as business owners as family people as well. So everybody wins in that. Yeah, you
Gary Spurgeon 19:00
know, interesting, the the podcasting, it just continues to grow. You know, when I knew you were over my very first facility. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, my little 12 by 12 foot room. And now we have over 500 square feet and two Studios here. And that kind of gives you a sense and a feel what's going on. I think my biggest challenge right now is time because not only because of my two businesses, but because of the fact that just to make sure people are getting scheduled and taken care of properly here. You know that that goes to show you that the growth is continuing.
Jason Fuchs 19:27
Thank you. And I think that's probably the biggest challenge. And I think that's why I think people stop podcasting is they do this podcast for three months, six months, nine months, 12 months, and they just they don't see their audience growing the way they want to. But I always tell people, picture your audience in a room with you. If I were giving a presentation about finance, for example. I have five people in the room. I would love that. I mean yeah, it's only five people but five people came to listen to my topic. Now. 10 people 20 people, 30 people, 50 people. I think so many People going back to Joe Rogan look at millions and millions of followers and they try to gauge their podcast against that. And it's not reasonable.
Gary Spurgeon 20:10
No, it's not well, I'm gonna let you use some numbers here. But let me give you some numbers. So this is what most folks don't understand about podcasting. So if you get 2000, I'm gonna use just two, I'm gonna go 2000, which is a lot of podcasts. But if you get 2000 downloads in one month, you're in the top 5% of podcasters. But wait a minute, you get 100 downloads in a month, you're in the top 50 percentile, that that's amazing to me, I just read an article where 141 podcast is the average podcast in the average month of the first podcast, really. So that's average, that's average. But I think that's you make a very valid point, don't try to be Joe Rogan try to be yourself. And it'll happen, just have fun doing it.
Jason Fuchs 20:49
Or you kind of get to a point where it grows so fast. So just so quickly, and then you kind of slow down and you see a little bit of a plateau. And what's happening is as as the podcast, I can't speak for anybody else. But as dad sense evolves, so does the audience. So you may lose members of your audience, but you're gaining new members as well. And I think for me, what's happening is, you're just cycling in people who are more interested in the topic. So for example, dad says could have 10,000 listeners per month, let's just say, I don't know what our numbers are, I haven't looked at them yet. But how many of those 10,000 are actually engaged in the content, how many are listening, because they really, really love and enjoy the podcast, maybe it's something they're just listening to in the background while they're cooking dinner, or they're driving to work. So when I lose listeners, I get a little frustrated. And I have to remind myself that it's just part of the cycle, I may be losing some of those listeners. But those people aren't really all about that sense. It's the people who are sticking around consistently, who are really enjoying the podcast. So I'm going to give
Gary Spurgeon 21:59
you a broadcast term what you're actually you're very well informed, but we call it a p one to P five listeners p one or the heavy users of your podcast, okay? You wonder the heavy users of radio. So example or your P one or the or the ones or maybe a group of let's say I'm using 10,000, let's say a 10,000. But really only 1500 are your high you know, your your heavy users of your product that's important to you. Those are the people that those are the ones you want to listen to me. I listen to your podcast every week, what are they telling you? Those are the ones that are gonna give you great insight and where you may need to go with your podcast. Those other ones are great. They're Don't tell me every listener is important. Oh, absolutely. I appreciate all of our listeners. Yeah, yeah. But at the same time is that you know, you've got to make sure that you're adjusting to the your heavy users of the product so they can enjoy it more and tell and tell their friends about it. Because that's what you're going to grow the things to say look like people do like things, as you know.
Jason Fuchs 22:49
Exactly. And ladies and gentlemen, you want to tweak your podcasts and allow your podcasts to evolve according to you. You don't want to force something because let's say you get a bad review on Apple. You don't want to completely adjust your format to fit that one bad review. You've got to look at the rest of your audience. They've given you the positive review.
Gary Spurgeon 23:09
Well, it's just like you're talking about social media, but that's what they used to tell my my announcers you know, imagine and Houston, Texas, we had 1.4 million listeners, right? Wow. Okay, so that's for one radio station. So we get four or five calls on something. Yeah. And the people were freaking out and I'm going, everybody's got to take a breath. Yeah, that's for poor people. Now, of course, somebody says, Well, how many of those represent Well, you Okay, let's say they represent 5% 95% or 1% of your audience. Really? We're gonna change everything because somebody said they didn't like this or they didn't like that. You've got to be smart about in with your pot. You what you just said, you got to be smart about your podcasts and, you know, what are you giving them and what are they like? So just be careful. Hey, look at you can't please 100% of the people no time. No, no, and you're gonna get and people are gonna get negative comments. It's happens to all of us. Thank you so much. Yeah, hey, look at if anybody's interested in podcasting, I'd love to help them out. Just pick up the phone, give me a call. I respond very quickly. And just you know, if you have any questions, I'm here to help people. That's the goal just like you are, I'm trying to do that. Give them a great experience when they come in and do this journey of a podcast. And it's just like, I tell people, the podcasting adventure, adventure is a journey. It's not where you're, it's not where you're gonna end up. It's where you're at right now and how you're going to change during the process. And you're you're living breathing proof of
Jason Fuchs 24:24
it. And ladies and gentlemen, it's supposed to be fun when you lose that element of podcasting. What's the point? It's exactly what I tell everybody. The ladies and gentlemen, you can do this. You too can be a podcaster. Gary, you've shared with us a ton of valuable content. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, if you've got questions, email me, call me. Or you can reach out to the pro himself, Gary. And how can people do that Gary,
Gary Spurgeon 24:50
they can call me anytime at 904-544-2110 that's 904-544-2110 or you can Go to my website and communicate through there. And that's that studio podcast suites calm that studio podcast suites su i t s.com.
Jason Fuchs 25:09
All kinds of great resources in there. Oh, covered a lot of stuff. Hey, ready for some q&a here. Let's do it. All right, let's get into it now. We're back. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you again for joining us. Now I received a question from someone. And as always, compliance will not let me share that name. So we're going to use Amber. No, this is not a question for my wife. But I know she's listening. Hey, Amber, Allah. Have you ever says I've enjoyed dad, since I'm loving the interviews you've been doing? Thank you so much. Amber, very kind of you to say, I appreciate you. Amber continues. I make quote unquote, too much money and the IRS won't allow me to make contributions to a Roth IRA. I've heard something about indirectly contributing to a Roth every year. Do you know anything about that? Fantastic question. Amber. I'm happy to help. There is something called a backdoor Roth IRA. Have you heard anything about this? Gary? I haven't heard that. Yeah, it's pretty neat. Now, ladies and gentlemen, Amber, Gary, this is not an official type of retirement account. Instead, it's a way for people who make a lot of money to sidestep the IRS has income limits placed on Roth IRA contributions. And what are those limits? Gary, I'm so glad you asked. In 2021, the government allows folks with a modified adjusted gross income am AGI below 208,000. If you're filing jointly, or 140,000. If you're filing single, your modified adjusted gross income that M AGI, it's your adjusted gross income AGI after taking into account certain allowable deductions and tax penalties. Now, most taxpayers, those numbers will be the same. So what if your m AGI is above those limits that I just mentioned? Well, Gary, again, I'm so glad you asked. This is where the conversion comes into play. So we're going to use a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA to pull off the strategy. It involves converting the traditional IRA into the Roth variety. So using some fancy administrative work, we put the money in the traditional IRA, and then we convert the contribution to a Roth IRA. And then we pay taxes, I'll give you the instructions, I'll give you all the paperwork to make sure it gets done correctly. And ladies and gentlemen, I'm by your side throughout the entire process, walking you through it, you're not alone. And I've done this many, many times with my clients, ladies and gentlemen, now we're not trying to dodge taxes here. When you convert from a traditional to a Roth, you'll owe taxes on the entire amount transferred. And if the funds have been sitting in your traditional IRA for a while, and there are investment gains, your money grew, you'll need to pay taxes on those gains as well. But and here's the cool part, Gary, you should pay no additional taxes when you withdraw the money in retirement. And that is a significant perk, because unfortunately, there is no other type of retirement account out there that will allow you to grow your money tax free, and take it out of the account tax free when you retire. So even though we don't qualify to contribute to a Roth, we got in through the backdoor anyway, hence the name. And it doesn't matter how much income you can make anyone can do this to the backdoor Roth IRA, it's only going to work if you follow the rules. If you don't follow the rules, it can create some drastic consequences. So you have to do it correctly. And that is why Gary, it's so important to work with a professional like me. So what are the rules that conversion must be one of the following three, one must be a rollover, when you receive the money from your traditional IRA, and then you deposit it into your Roth within 60 days. Number two, it could be a trustee to trustee transfer. And this is when the company holding the IRA sends the money directly to the company holding your Roth IRA. So for example, a client has an IRA at fidelity, they're working with me, the daddy would send the money to me, and we'd put it in the Roth IRA that I managed okay. Or number three, a same trustee transfer and this is typically how it operates with my clients. Gary, this is when the money goes from the traditional IRA to the Roth IRA at the same financial institution. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Sounds like a lot of work.
Gary Spurgeon 29:52
Yeah. Okay, I'm writing.
Jason Fuchs 29:56
Everybody awake out there. You know, the conversion is definitely Worth it though, I recommend this strategy 90% of the time, unless one of the following applies to you. Okay, so there are some caveats. One, the only way you can pay taxes do is with money from the IRA withdraw itself, you don't want to do that. You're sacrificing future investment growth on those funds. And there's a risk Plus, if you're under 59 and a half, and you do that, you're gonna have to pay a 10%, early withdrawal penalty on the funds, which is not worth it. Okay. Number two, do not convert if you need the money within five years or less. Now many people know about this one. When you convert from a traditional to a Roth, you must obey the five year rule. If you don't wait five years to withdraw those converted funds, you could owe taxes and a 10%, early withdrawal penalty. Okay, so that's number two. Number three, the withdrawal from your traditional IRA will push you into a higher tax bracket. I see this happen frequently when people do this on their own. This gets overlooked a lot. I recommend converting just enough so you don't fall into a higher tax bracket. I mean, no one wants to pay more taxes than they have to. Right. Exactly. Again, if one of those three applies to you don't do the conversion. But what you can do is you can reach out to me if you'd like to double check. Again, it can get very, very confusing. I hope that answers your question, Amber. Ladies and gentlemen, Amber, Gary, the backdoor Roth IRA can be so confusing. It involves a complex set of rules or regulations. So before moving forward, considering working with a professional, familiar with the process like me, for example, reach out to me, I'd be happy to help. So let's conclude today's episode, Gary, shall we? Absolutely. All right, ladies and gentlemen, lean on me for support. I'm getting pretty good at this podcasting thing. I'm loving it. Now. I would love to help you with yours. Also, this Roth conversion thing. I'll get you through the process. Lean on me for support. I'm going to be with you every step of the way. How do you do that? head to our website, www dot Sage path FA comm there's a calendar link at the top of the page, click that link. You can hop directly on my schedule yourself. You'll find that I'm freely giving him my time. You can call me email me, Gary, anything you'd like to add?
Gary Spurgeon 32:30
Um, no, no, it was great information on that Roth IRA. Yeah,
Jason Fuchs 32:33
thank you so much. Great information on podcasting. Thank
Gary Spurgeon 32:36
you. Thank you. Hopefully I'm really looking forward to helping people fantastic. I learned something today.
Jason Fuchs 32:40
I learned a lot too. There we go. Alright, so one more time. How can people get in touch with you?
Gary Spurgeon 32:44
They can reach me here at 904 904-544-2110 or they can reach me on my through my website at Studio podcast. suite.com
Jason Fuchs 32:56
fantastic. Again, thank you so much for being here.
Gary Spurgeon 32:58
That was a pleasure being on your show.
Jason Fuchs 33:00
We had a ton of fun, and I really did. Alright ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for sticking with us. That concludes the episode of dad cents we'll see in three weeks for a new episode. Take care.
We all love disclosures. Securities and investment advisory services offered through FSC securities Corporation FSC member FINRA SIPC, never see a separately owned and other entities and our marketing names, products or services referenced here are independent of FSC. This show is not meant to provide legal or tax advice nor is it a recommendation for any specific investment. Jason Fuchs, Gary Spurgeon, sage path and FSC are unaffiliated. This episode is sponsored by Dunham and Associates investment Council, Inc. Thanks again for listening. I can Great Day
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